Three is a crowd
by HautkopfofUlm
Summary: When Winston gets a call from Guerrero in the middle of the night, he and Chance need to unravel not only their personal issues with the guy, but also the mess of his last job in order to help him. No Ilsa/ Ames.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note:**

This is my VERY FIRST attempt ever at fanfiction and I'm not a native speaker, BUT luckily I found a very kind and patient beta-reader who does an incredible job at de-circuitous-ing my chaotic outputs. Or maybe it would be fair to say that tree979 found me, anyway, thank you, tree979 for all the time and effort you invest in this!

Please, PLEASE let me know in the reviews if I'm a total fail at writing fanfiction and what I could do better and maybe if you enjoyed it at all. I'm feeling really insecure about this and I'd like to know what you all think. THANKS, it means a lot!

Disclaimer: I don't intend to earn money with this and do this strictly out of desperation and for fun. All rights to Human Target are reserved to Fox.

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3am.

Winston could no longer ignore his phone's ringing and it obviously wasn't going to stop on its own. He and Chance had just put a case to bed and they were both supposed to be enjoying a little down time. Who the hell was calling him at this hour? He made a move for the light switch but decided against having his retinas burnt together with his ear drums, so he settled for staring the annoying noise down in the dark. Unsurprisingly, it did not go away. Now _that_ wasn't good. Resigned, he reckoned his chance of enlightenment would only increase with the space between the phone and the receiver.

"Yeah!" he barked into the receiver. No one answered. He could hear faint noises in the background and something that sounded like a breeze of wind or cars going by on a road, something rhythmic like… _breathing?_

"Look, if this is some kind of joke, you picked the right man at the right time because I WILL" - he stopped in disbelief as his tired brain finally registered what he had heard from the other end:

"Dude… you gotta come pick me up." What little concern he had had for the caller until this moment quickly turned to untamed rage.

"GUERRERO? The HELL your're thinking calling me in the middle of the night after you stayed conveniently absent for what- two weeks in a row? Man, I promise, I'm gonna kill you first thing in the morning! With your own chopsticks, you HEAR me?"

Only when Winston ran out of breath did he really took notice of what the other man had said to him. He fell silent at the strangeness of it all. Not only had Guerrero NOT impatiently choked off Winston's tirade as he usually did, he hadn't even bitched about how long it took Winston to pick up in the first place. That was so un-Guerrero-y that Winston almost missed the fact that Guerrero actually had asked a favour of him. He was so done with the little rat.

"WHAT? You refuse to help in the last four cases, hell, you refuse to let anyone know you're still in town and alive and now you've got the nerve to ring a hard-working, already pissed-off-at-you man out of bed? That takes cojones, _amigo_, but as you can tell, I am NOT willing to reward your little suicidal test of courage!"

Again there was an extended silence, this time followed by something that sounded like a moan.

"Winston, I know you're not used to ME asking favours of YOU… but try to imagine just how strange that must feel to ME" Guerrero answered in a sarcastic snarl.

That was much more Guerrero, Winston thought, but another ringing noise crept into the back of his head. It was alarm bells. Guerrero sounded irritated, but not his usual psychopath-that-threatens-you-until-you-kill-yourself-_for_-him kind of irritated and besides that he sounded strangely calm. Or exhausted? And when was the last time that he had referred to him as _Winston_?

"Look… I NEED you to come 'n get me… …", there was another noise that could have been a malfunction in the connection or a grunt, "… I'm…" - was Guerrero unsure of what to say next or was he catching his breath? - "…at the corner of Borges Avenue and Levingston Alley…"

It sounded like Guerrero wanted to say something more but instead Winston could hear a stifled gasp through the phone that made him ignore the alarm bells in his head and jump out of his bed and straight into his trousers that were on a stool close to the bed.

"Guerrero? What is going on? Are you on drugs?"

"Dude, all I gotta say is… you don't make it over here… soonish…" - there was more ragged breathing- "… you won't need the chopsticks…"

Even through his slurring Winston could hear that Guerrero got some satisfaction out of winding him up to the point where he was issuing death threats.

"Guerrero, I'm on my way now, stay put. Just tell me what the hell s going on!" Winston said to the earpiece he had just put in in order to be ready to drive. With Guerrero mumbling about getting killed, he wasn't in the mood to argue with him.

"Alright, I'm in the car now, be there in twenty!" Winston said. There was no response.

"Guerrero? You there? GUERRERO? Tell me what's going on!"

"Dude... 'M righere, no need to uuuh bawl…" Guerrero not so much as whispered. "I dunno really whoa happened… 's kinda gettin hard to… to think."

That statement alarmed Winston. Pushing down on the accelerator hard he ignored all speed limits as he wished he'd realised the severity of the situation right from the beginning. Guerrero was clearly struggling, against what Winston did not know, but he had never heard the defiant guy so helpless. Maybe he was just drunk, maybe it was something else. These thoughts processed through his mind in a split second, but it felt like an hour.

"Guerrero, I want you to stay with me here, ya hear me? You can't go mentally AWOL on me now, understood?"

Again all he heard was that wheezing sound. Nope, not just drunk, he thought.

"UNDERSTOOD?" C'mon, Guerrero, stay with me here, Winston pleaded silently as he took a right turn and then another. Instead of a word of assurance or at least annoyance he heard the sound of what appeared to be a phone falling to the ground, clattering on the concrete.

_Damnit!_ He kept listening intently for a few minutes and could make out that Guerrero's cell was still connected, so it couldn't have fallen too far. Which meant that Guerrero was probably on the ground, too, because he never heard _him_ fall either. With a last left bend that he almost took on two wheels, Winston slammed on the brakes and, grabbing a gun from the glove compartment, jumped out of the car. He pocketed a flashlight from the trunk before taking a first look around.

Of course, Guerrero wouldn't have chosen an amiable place to get into trouble in to begin with, but _this_ looked like a horror film set. Winston knew that his impression came mostly because of the darkness, but he knew this part of town in daylight, and even then it wasn't a pretty sight.

"Guerrero?" he whispered, more to the mic in his earpiece than to the actual Guerrero. He was surrounded by old, pitch black storing buildings, high enough to block out the last bit of moon light and also effectively swallowing the light of street lamps on the main street. There weren't any lights in the narrow alleys and he knew all kind of mischief could lurk in the many little lanes he faced.

"GUERRERO?" he shouted this time, if he wanted to find him, maybe he should let him know he was there. Or let someone know he was there. For that someone he unlocked his gun as audible as he could and with the gun and flashlight beam pointed forward he inched slowly into the darkness.

_What the hell would Guerrero want here, anyway?_ he thought as doubt about the man's motives forced its way into Winston's head. He pointed his gun into the alley left to him in a swift motion. It was completely empty. Not even doors, just solid brick walls and some rats climbing around the fire escapes. He shrugged off the questions that he would never have answers for anyway with a It's-Guerrero-deal-with-it sigh and checked out the gap to his right. Dumpsters. Some other junk he wasn't to investigate any further. He heard noises from a bar a short distance away and walked towards that direction, checking alleys left and right. Suddenly a shocking thought paralyzed him for a second as he pointed his light beam into yet another alley full of trash and nothingness: what if he wasn't here anymore? What if somebody hauled him off, and he was too late? Chance would never forgive him.

_Concentrate!_ he scolded himself as he found himself staring at some long forgotten about trash bags. As he turned the light away to head to the next junction something caught his eye in the alley he had just dismissed. A little rectangular patch of blue light. The display of a cell phone. Winston started into the alley with a terrible mixture of hope and fear. One of the trashbags had the outlines of a human being curled on the ground. With two big strides Winston stood above the motionless figure.

"Oh shit" escaped Winston's mouth as he looked at the heap at his feet.

The skinny man was a bloody mess. He lay on his side, back resting against the wall. His one hand was next to his face and held a short knife, the other hand under his body held on tight to his rib cage. Squatting down, Winston secured and stowed away the gun and put the flashlight into his mouth to have his hands free to examine the haggard man in front of him.

"Hey, are you with me here?" he talked around the flashlight. He received a growl in response. The image of a badly wounded wolf suddenly flashed in front of the black man's eyes. It was lying bleeding on its side, growling with its teeth bared, paranoid and willing to defend itself til death. He couldn't see much of Guerrero's skin under the usual layer of t-shirt and patterned shirt, but what little he could see was bruised badly and swelling up, as was the left side of his face, that was facing him. There was a lot of blood in his hair and on his shirt, and also deep gashes on his face from which trickles of blood ran down. When Guerrero opened his eyes, he looked both confused and alarmed and for a few moments he didn't seem to recognize the man hovering above him.

"Dude, wha- what took ya so long?" he finally managed. It took Winston what felt to himself like another hour until it registered that the mercenary had been shot or stabbed and beaten into a pulp. Probably not in that order.

"Here, let me see that…" Winston hadn't even touched Guerrero yet, when the latter hissed an aggressive "Back off!" and at the same drew back further to the wall behind him. The image of the wolf was back. Never provoke a deadly animal in distress. Winston held up his hands in a do-no-harm manner and went for a different approach.

"Okay Guerrero, hold still, I'm calling an ambulance- DON'T MOVE!" he added commandingly when Guerrero jerked at the mention of the ambulance.

"No. hospital." Guerrero mustered pointedly, "Whaddcha think I called YOU for? And whaddcha think I have this for?" He shoved the short knife under Winston's nose for inspection. There was blood on the blade. Guerrero gave Winston a menacing, lop-sided smile...

"You are in no position to bargain, much less to threaten me, _Jack_" Winston growled with authority that was not to be questioned. Using Guerrero's real first name had the intended effect. The cocky half-smile vanished from the injured man's face and one of intense pain took over, if only for a second.

"I want to help you, but we're going to do it my way, not the dodge-all-authorities-way, is. that. clear." Winston's stern face hovered inches from Guerrero's battered one, leaving no doubt as to who was in charge.

"Dude- not cool." Guerrero had propped his upper part of the body up against the wall with some difficulty and was clearly in a lot of pain. Winston could see how much even that small exertion cost him. He respected Guerrero's wish to maintain some of his dignity though and hadn't helped him. They engaged in a momentary staring contest until Winston broke eye contact to check where the knife had gone in the meantime. The hand with the knife rested at the side of Guerrero's leg and he made no effort whatsoever to actually threaten his potential saviour. He just didn't have the energy.

Guerrero frowned, then took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. It was a sigh, but midways it turned into a rattle, then to a cough and Guerrero's former restrained mimic contorted to one of agony once again.

"Trade-off." He let the word fall to the ground. He knew he couldn't summon up any rational reasons to avoid the PTBs, but he hoped that if he played to nurse Winston's idea of professional medical treatment, he would go for it.

" 'M gonna see a doc… surgeon even. Bu' you gotta take me there an' it'll be oneofma… contacts. He says I dun manage there, I'm offta hospiddle." He was staring again at Winston, but this time with a mixture of desperation and pleading.

"Deal, dude?"

*tbc*


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's note:** I never thought I'd be such a detailed writer and I never wanted the story to become so... lengthy. Is it too much? Bear with me, it'll get better soon... maybe...

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Guerrero never pleaded. To anyone. If he did it was still just a badly hidden demand. So he had to be serious about this. Seriously desperate. Winston wished Chance was there, why hadn't Guerrero called _him._ But right now they couldn't effort to lose any more time to musings and upsetting the assassin further might just bring that blade back into view, so he heard himself mutter a barely audible "Deal". For the fraction of a second he thought he saw something resembling thankfulness in Guerrero's eyes, but a moment later they became part of a grimace as Guerrero realized it was time to get up. Winston picked up Guerrero's phone, then crouched next to him and gently put the arm that was not clutched to Guerrero's side over his shoulders. The knife had miraculously disappeared, but Winston estimated it was still nearby just in case he would try anything. Guerrero angled his legs and pushed himself up the wall while the tall man at his side supported his weight by his arm. Suddenly Guerrero groaned, not even trying to hide it this time and Winston felt the hand on his back claw into the fabric of his jacket. He heard Guerrero mumble something that sounded like "not used to this stuff anymore" and gently pushed the still bleeding man against the building behind. Guerrero was leaning heavily against the wall and Winston's side and the latter found that "standing up" he looked even worse. He was white as a sheet and trembling violently, still holding on to his side. The blood stain there had grown remarkably in the time they spent talking.

"What is that?" Winston gave a nod in the direction of the wound.

"Gun shot wound" Guerrero said in a neutral voice, making it sound like a question. "And NO, the bullet has not … exited." He grinded his teeth and breathed in short, stagnant breaths.

"Hell, why have I agreed to this." It wasn't really a question. But Guerrero answered it anyway:

"Cause I tricked ya into it. 'Ss go." He made an effort to stand upright with the help of the wall, but instead gave another tormented moan and for a moment let Winston support most of his weight. His head fell forward and Winston thought he was going to pass out.

"Are you sure you can-"

Guerrero shivered and gave a tiny nod, not even lifting his head, but Winston was sure that behind his curtain of blood-clotted hair he was rolling his eyes.

The walk to the car was short, but until Guerrero was safely seated on the passenger seat some minutes had gone by and as soon as Winston closed the passenger door he closed his eyes and rested his head against the head-rest. Winston got in on the other side and backed out of the alley. When turning back to the main street he realised he had no idea where they needed to go.

"Guerrero. Guerrero, you need to tell me where to go… hey!" Guerrero finally opened his eyes and turned his head to the direction of the noise. He looked at him, but his eyes were glassy and unfocused.

"Guerrero, snap out of it! I need the address of that godamn contact of yours, remember?" They went over a bump in the road which made them both flinch; Guerrero because he was hurt already and Winston because he didn't want to cause the guy any more pain then he was already in. On the other hand it snapped Guerrero out of his daze.

"Hey, dude" he stated in his nonchalant way as if Winston and he had just met. Winston was losing patience.

"Listen, you're hurt and badly. Now you said you knew somebody, a surgeon or summthin, but if you don't give me the address right now, I'm taking you to the hospital, you understand!"

"Huh? Oooh" His eyes grew wide as he looked down his body. "Uuuuuh righ'…" he stalled as he tried to remember what person they were actually talking about. Finally he said:

"Phone. Call. O'Leary." He seemed to be astounded when Winston produced Guerrero's phone from his own jacket pocket and gave up trying to make sense of it all. He closed his eyes again, tightened his grip over the still oozing wound at his chest and sank some deeper into the seat. Winston gave him a worried look that Guerrero wouldn't have appreciated as he dialled and waited for someone to pick up.

"Hello!" said a snappy voice at the other end. It was a woman's voice which made Winston unsure for a moment, then he pulled himself together.

"Uh, are you O'Leary?"

"Who's asking?"

"Listen, do you know a guy named Guerrero? My name's Winston, I'm a friend of his, he's with me right now and he's in trouble. He told me to call you."

"How bad?" the voice snapped. Winston wasn't sure how willing to help that O'Leary woman really was.

"He took a bullet to the chest and a pretty good beating. He's losing a lot of blood." Speaking of blood: Winston was sure Guerrero would need some and he had no idea what blood type Guerrero had. Guerrero's mysterious contact disturbed his musings:

"Where are you now?"

"Bush Street, headed north"

"Alright, bring him over." The voice still sounded annoyed, but there was some urgency in it now, too, as she described Winston where to go.

Winston first attempted to drive carefully as to not unnecessarily torture his passenger further, but he felt that driving like he had a car full of raw eggs wasn't helping Guerrero's situation much, so he sped up. Shortly before they reached the described building he saw out of the corner of his eye how Guerrero's head fell on his chest and his hands, that were applying pressure to the wound until now lay loosely in his lap.

"Shit, not now! Hang in there, Guerrero, almost there!"

Winston reckoned it would take too much time to stop and do something against the bleeding himself, so he kept driving like a mad man and wondered repeatedly if his decision to go with Guerrero's plea would cost the man his life. He couldn't forgive himself that.

He saw the house he was looking for from far away, because a person stood in the light of the doorway, apparently waiting. Winston gave the steering wheel a daring jerk and drove right over the pavement and as near to the front door as possible. He jumped out of the car with the engine still running and as the woman came running towards him he opened the door on Guerrero's side and unbuckled his seatbelt.

"Winston?" the woman asked.

"O'Leary" Winston nodded back at her. He got the impression that she tried to evaluate him, because for a moment she stared straight at him, then turned her attention to the person in the car. Her jaw dropped.

"Quick. Inside!" she ordered as she looked the street up and down.

"He lost consciousness 'bout five minutes ago, I tried to arouse him, but he's not reacting!" They dragged him unceremoniously out of the car and put one of his arms each over their backs. Neither when they pulled the lifeless form of Guerrero up, nor when they dragged him into the house did the light man make any sound or movement. His stillness scared Winston even more than the growls and the knife from before.

"In here!" The doc pointed with her chin to a door at the far right and they towed Guerrero through. Winston was quite surprised at what he found: it looked like a miniature operating room, complete with table, lamp and dubious devices.

"Let's get him on the table. Now I don't have to tell you that the conditions here aren't exactly the best." she said as if she was apologizing for the mess in the apartment to an unannounced guest.

"Should we just get him to a hospital right now?" Winston asked with the dimmest glow of hope that he would finally have his way and still not betray Guerrero.

"No, not NOW!" That was as in: he wouldn't make it right now. „Here" –she shoved a pair of latex gloves into his hands– "put these on and then grab that towel over there, that's aseptic. Press it on the wound while I wash up!" And with that she went through another door Winston hadn't even noticed. It seemed to take forever before the doc came back. All the while Winston was watching Guerrero for some sign of life, but the only thing he found was the erratic, fast breathing he could feel under his hand and with each ragged breath he feared it could stop.

"Alright. Out." He hadn't even heard her come back and startled, but more to the fact that he had to leave Guerrero's side now. It felt wrong. What if-

"There's fresh coffee on the stove in the kitchen. Feel free." she said somewhat more sympathetic. Winston glanced back as the woman put on a mask and a pair of gloves, then he threw one last glance at the still form on the table and closed the heavy metal door.

Silence. And quietness. Both so complete that Winston couldn't quite stand it after these last ninety minutes of apocalypse. His mind was still racing, but at the same time he couldn't hold on to a single thought, so he just stood there listening to his pounding heart and whooshing in his head for he didn't know how long. Then it came to him: he had to call Chance. He allowed himself to sit down and took a deep breath. That would be one of the hardest calls he ever made, he mused as he pulled out his cell phone. There was barely any blood on his hands, how was that possible?

*tbc*


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's note:** Not sure about this, could be a bit OOC. The reason why Guerrero didn't call Chance appears a bit contrived even to myself. But I like the word "contrived". Hope you enjoy, though. Now that my exam paper is done, unfortunately so is my plot bunny, but it'll work its way back just in time for my new term to start I'm sure.

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"How is he?" was the first thing Chance said when he met Winston at the front door to the doc's house. Winston had told him everything over the phone while Chance was driving, so that now they both knew what little there was to know.

"I dunno, man, she's been in there for almost an hour. Guess that means he's alive at least…"

It could also mean that Guerrero was losing the fight. They settled down at the round kitchen table and helped themselves to big mugs of coffee. An uncomfortable quietness settled over them, there was nothing more to discuss, so Chance just stared into space, while Winston couldn't quite bring himself to ask what was on his mind. He was an ex-cop, damnit, he was used to bring up unpleasant questions.

"Why didn't he call _you_?" Chance didn't look at him, in fact he didn't move at all and after a few seconds Winston wasn't sure if the ex-assassin had even heard him.

"Guerrero and I… aren't exactly on speaking terms right now." Chance muttered finally.

_That _explained everything. Why Guerrero hadn't cropped up for two weeks, why Chance was suspiciously elusive concerning all things Guerrero, why he had that look on his brooding face right now: he was already blaming himself. Winston was about to try and talk him out of his guilt feelings when Chance suddenly offered something more:

"We had a fight, 'bout two weeks ago, about a job that Guerrero was going to take. I found out about it by accident, got something to do with industrial espionage. So I told him that he might get in way over his head with this one and he didn't take that too well. Said that trying to fight for the good side wasn't just for me and that he could pull it off, too and without my help. I know he's got issues with the whole do-good-thing, I dunno, it's almost like somebody told him that he couldn't do it, that he couldn't change. I tried to talk to him, but… well, it's Guerrero. It's just that he's so goddamn _stubborn!_" Chance shrugged and shifted, obviously uncomfortable with what he was about to say. Winston suspected Guerrero might've said something really uncalled-for, but he wasn't about to interrupt Chance, now that he got him talking.

"I… I said some stuff to him… stuff that just slipped out in the heat of the moment about… about how he failed to sincerely wanting to help people before, that maybe he did it out of the wrong motives… I practically told him that these jobs of his were unethical and that he didn't question enough…"

"Oh." That was all Winston could say for the moment, because really, that was kind of low, especially regarding the relationship between Chance and Guerrero. Yes, they could be like children sometimes and Winston figured that children were capable of saying very mean things.

"You know, I just wanted to let him know that he didn't _need _to do it on his own, that he could trust me, but I guess he doesn't quite trust himself. After this, he just left. No, he vanished. I went by his apartment, I tried to call him after a week, but then I took the hint and left him alone." Chance wanted to say something more, but Winston knew what was going to come was faster:

"No, it isn't. It's not your fault, I mean. You tried to help the guy, you offered him assistance and he didn't take it."

"Yeah, but if I hadn't pushed him away like that he might've come back. So now he tried to prove that he doesn't need anybody for anything."

"Well, we know now that _that_ ain't true. You think he's safe here for now?"

"Yeah, I don't think that whoever did this links us to him. And they left him there in this alley to die, so I don't presume either of us was followed." That brought them back to their current situation. They had waited for another forty minutes and the clock in the kitchen stroke half past five. Neither of them drank their coffee, they were too much on edge already. Chance went back to his brooding, probably wondering what he could've made different and Winston felt helpless again. He knew Chance and Guerrero went way back and it wasn't his place to try and mend any problems they might have, but he felt like had to do _something_.

"You were right. Whatever mess Guerrero got himself into here, he won't be able to pull himself out. Or others, for that matter. He needs us. We need to find out what exactly he was working on and maybe we can clean some of this up."

"I know. I guess right now Guerrero doesn't have much of a choice either. But I don't know where to start. It's not like he'll be answering any questions any time soon. Least of all to me."

"Yeah, but he called _me_ of all people, so I'm thinking he wanted me to be involved somehow. Maybe that was even his way to reach out to you, ya know, weird-Guerrero-style. And we have someplace to start- the alley." That brought Chance's head up from his contemplation of his lukewarm coffee and a zest for action to his eyes. At this moment the door in the corridor opened and the woman they only knew as O'Leary came walking towards the kitchen.

Now, after all the bustle, Winston perceived her appearance for the firt time. She was older than he thought, maybe in her mid fifties, had short grey hair that made her look younger and a slight limp that made her look older. The expression on her face was one of exhaustion and she didn't smile. Winston prepared for the worst.

"Well, Guerrero generously decided to stay with us. For now." She said with a sarcastic undertone. "And you are?" she added to Chance with a raised eyebrow.

"Chance. I'm a friend of Guerrero's. We were-"

"In the same business together. I know. Guerrero once persuaded me to help you if you ever ended up on my door step." Chance didn't want to go into Guerrero's persuasion techniques right now.

"Please, how is he holding up?" The doc poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down with them at the table.

"Guerrero used to have a tendency for getting himself into trouble, so to speak. But this is quite something else. As you said" – the woman nodded to Winston – "he was shot and beaten up. He lost a lot of blood due to the GSW, but he was actually lucky. His lungs are intact, so is his abdominal aorta, but I wish I could say the same for his ribs. One was shattered because of the bullet, so I had to pull all the pieces out together with the projectile. One of them pierced the splenic artery, but the good thing is that Guerrero doesn't have a spleen anymore anyway, or he would've bled to death in a matter of minutes. Two more ribs are broken. He also certainly has a concussion. Without him being awake I can't determine how bad it is, however, but he has quite the bump on the back of his head. The rest of his injuries are mainly bruises and deep gashes, from a knife, probably. Speaking of which, I found one with his clothes." she stated matter-of-factly.

"I have three major concerns: One: the blood loss. I tried to substitute some of it with artificial blood, but that only thins down the rest of the blood in the body, it has no haemoglobin in it. Frankly, I don't think he's going to make it through… uh the day without a proper transfusion. Two: His body is already weakened by his injuries, and I'm afraid the bullet wound might become infected. I pumped him full of antibiotics, but I don't know if his body can handle it. If there should be an outbreak in his current state this would be over pretty quick. Three: Pain. Since I don't know how bad his concussion is, I can't administer any pain killers right now. He's out for the count as it is and I guess he'll be for at least 12 hours, but pain puts the body under even more stress, above all when he comes around." That was bad news. The doctor was telling them in a roundabout way that just because he stuck around for as long as he did now, it didn't mean he would recover.

"I'm sorry. Guerrero is a fighter, I'm surprised he made it this far and even stayed conscious for so long" – again she nodded towards Winston – "but he's also a fool. He's ready to trade his freedom for his life."

"Guerrero's blood type is A negative. Mine's zero. Not a perfect match, but I can donate for him." Chance suddenly piped up. "We used to joke about it back when… but since… I totally forgot about it." They other two stared at him for a moment before they realized the meaning of this.

"Are you sure you're completely healthy? No cold or other bugs?"

"Yes, I'm sure. I've had all my vaccinations, too."

"How much of that coffee did you have?"

"Uuuh, a sip maybe…"

"What are we waiting for?" O'Leary sprang to her feet. "Follow me!"

Chance got up numbly. This was all going really fast. His original plan was to drive to the alley with Winston and look for some clue of what had happened to their friend. They stared at each other in silent comprehension for a moment, then Chance followed the doctor.

*tbc*


	4. Chapter 4

**AN:** Not much happening here, but we get to know a little something about Guerrero's past and what connects the doctor and him. Nope, it's not love. Like in a romantic way, anyway. Sorry for the massive amount of description and inner monologue or whatever this is called in the beginning. There'll be a little action in the next chapter, though... which doesn't allow you to skip this one;) Review if you like. Review if you didn't like. Haikus are weird things.

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Winston had a hard time believing that only four hours before he had found Guerrero in the now dimly lit alley he was standing in once again. Again he had the torch in one hand his gun in the other, just in case the perps – he assumed it took more than one guy to maul Guerrero like that – came back to the crime scene. However, everything was quiet and it looked like nothing had been altered since last night. Winston let the light beam wander over the floor and walls as he came closer to the spot where he had found Guerrero. He began to feel slightly queasy when the light showed blood on the walls and the floor surrounding him. One area on the wall had a blood spatter that looked like it couldn't belong to Guerrero because the location and shape of the pattern indicated a headshot. Small calibre, probably, short distance, Winston thought or there would be brain matter as well. The blood stains on the floor were mostly blurred, certainly because of the people fighting in the area. Whatever went down here, must have been brutal and was probably further fuelled by the lack of space in the narrow alley. He tried to imagine Guerrero in a fast and violent fight like he had often seen Chance in, attacking men with no faces with his knife and dealing out slaps and kicks at cyberspeed. It was easy, but what he couldn't imagine was how that fight took a turn for the worst and left the deft mercenary fighting for his life. Something didn't add up: Why didn't the attackers finish their work and therefore Guerrero? Or, if they wanted him to live, why shoot him in the chest? And who shot the unlucky person whose blood Winston saw opposite from where Guerrero lay? Where was the weapon? Guerrero only had the knife on him. So Guerrero hadn't been opting for the fight. He found a blotch of blood on the wall at Guerrero's height and figured that this was where the bump on Guerrero's head came from and several single drops on the ground. Could be from the GSW or the numerous cuts he had suffered. He scanned the floor for more clues and discovered a bullet stuck in the tarmac. It was stuck too deep and he didn't have any tools with him, but Winston could see that it was in an almost vertical position, which was odd. He scanned the walls for more residue of the shooting and sure enough he found two or three grooves where bullets must have ricocheted off the walls, but these too ran in a vertical direction. _A sniper on the roof_, Winston realized as he headed for the fire escape at the other end of the alley.

On the roof was a body. The man was clad in black and had a bullet hole in the forehead, his rifle buried under him. Great, Winston thought, somebody needred to make the man disappear. He wondered if he should make an anonymous call to the PD, but decided against it. Down in the alley Winston reluctantly inspected the trashbags and behold: a small round black object rolled from between them towards his feet. Whatever it was, it was coming with him. Winston made a hasty retreat to his car, so that nobody would see him at the place of the crime. On the way back he wondered how he could get rid of the blood stain on the seatback.

Chance followed the woman to the make-shift operation room and fully expected to see Guerrero behind the door, but all there was on the table were compression bandages, saturated with blood, some other paraphernalia and a pile of what appeared to be the remains of Guerrero's clothes. His heart started pounding. She led him through the other door and there Guerrero was, but he wasn't prepared for what he saw. His friend and partner looked like death. He lay in what looked like a standard hospital bed, his upper part of the body elevated and as far as Chance could see bare. His arms rested on the blanket that went up to his armpits and already now they sported nasty, swollen bruises at the typical areas. His right shoulder was bandaged. The cuts in his face had all been cleaned, but looked pretty deep and one at his right temple was stripped with butterfly bandages. He was hooked up to a drip and an oxygen supply tube. Now-dried blood was still in his hair, but what really shocked Chance was how pale Guerrero looked. Was he even breathing? Chance felt like he wanted to scream, but stood there silently until the doctor, who was looking for some equipment in the room they passed came back and gave him a little shove, so that he walked into the room and sat down on the only other bed next to Guerrero's.

"We're going to do this directly, so your blood goes through this tube into Guerrero's arm. You're pretty tall and fit, so I will let you donate more blood than what is common, but you'll be fine. Lean back and hold on to this." She put a small towel in his right hand and jabbed the cannula with the tube in the crook of his arm. Then she connected the tube on the side of the little valve with the cannula in Guerrero's arm and opened the valve.

"I'll be next door if you need me or start feeling lightheaded. Don't give up on him yet." And with that she left and started tidying up the "battlefield" next door. Chance was still in a state of stupefaction, but pulled his eyes away from Guerrero's form. He never really thought about the possibility that his two closest friends could die, he just didn't want to go there. And doing so now wasn't proving very effective, so he asked the doc if he could have a look at Guerrero's clothes.

"I cut most of them away from him and be careful, the knife's still in there somewhere" she said as she placed the basket next to him on the bed. "And don't move your right arm!"

Whatever Chance hoped to find wasn't there. There was an empty piece of paper in the front pocket of the shirt, other then that the t-shirt and shirt were just dirty and bloody, the pockets of his jeans empty. He would have to take a look at Guerrero's shoes when he had the opportunity. Then there was the short dagger. Since there was blood on it, Chance assumed Guerrero had made use of it. Or maybe it was used against him. It was the typical combat knife they both sported when they didn't want to go completely unarmed, but didn't expect any trouble. Maybe there'd be fingerprints on it, but he doubted it, after all it's been through. There was no jacket, but that didn't surprise Chance, since Guerrero's several keys and little gadgets were also amiss and he knew about Guerrero's MO to deposit all personal belongings somewhere safe from the place of transaction. If Guerrero had had some kind of bag with him, it was either still in the alley or the attackers had it.

When Winston arrived back at the doctor's house, she was preparing breakfast in the kitchen. Winston really didn't want to put the doctor out, but he knew he would have a hard time to unglue Chance from Guerrero's side, so he didn't know what to say to her.

"How's Guerrero?"

"He's hanging in there. His pulse's slowed down quite a bit now. That's a good thing!" she quickly added when she saw Winston's reaction to this.

"And Chance?"

"Well, he should be just fine. He just needs to rest for a few hours and eat and drink much."

"I'll make sure of that. Do you think he's fit enough for us to grab some breakfast in town?"

"Oh, but you'll have breakfast here!"

Winston started. "How come you're so comfortable with two complete strangers in your house who dragged a man through your door in the middle of the night, half- beaten to death and that once "persuaded" you to help us out?" The woman turned around from the counter.

"Well, for one thing I know how hard it is to be away from a hurt person that you care for. Then there was that look in your and Chance's eyes that told me that you were really worrying about him and not just dropping some random stranger off. You didn't seem like a threat. And then, well Guerrero told me about you guys a bit, so it's like I already know you two." Winston was surprised. For one, because he couldn't imagine Guerrero chatting away about him and for one because he and the doctor seemed to know each other from more than one occasion. In this moment Chance joined them in the kitchen, though he was walking slowly and looked a bit exhausted. He let himself drop into one of the chairs.

"Hey, I told you to rest until breakfast's ready!" the doc said in a motherly tone. Chance just shrugged. He wanted to say something, but Winston already had a question ready for the doc.

"So… how do you and Guerrero know each other?" That seemed to prove interesting enough to Chance, so that he held off with the question of what Winston found in the alley. The doc put three big bowls of steaming hot porridge on the table and a big dish of freshly cut fruit. Coffee, juice, milk, bread and cutlery followed and they sat down.

"I met Guerrero back '95 or '96, don't remember. I was working with Doctors Without Borders in Burma at the time, we helped land mine victims. One night, he just showed up at the clinic with a wound at his thigh that was badly infected. My guess is he tried to tend to it himself, but with the heat and the dirty water it nearly proved fatal. He actually asked if he would have to threaten me and I said that I would help everybody as long as I was respected and he respected that and he respected me and we actually talked for a bit. Though he never told me what he was actually doing there. Anyway, 'bout half a year later a colleague and I went to the local elementary school to educate the kids about what I don't know anymore… on the way back… my colleague stepped on a land mine. I only lost my left foot, but that experience was enough for me to stay in the states, where I was sent for rehab. And then, one night, Guerrero just stood there. Just like before, only now I was the one in need. He helped me get back on my… well… foot and I decided to settle down in Frisco, because that's… well the friend that I saw die that day was born here and it made feel like she's still kinda with me." She smiled a sad smile.

"Wow, that's tough." Winston said. His respect for the brusque lady just grew a hundred times.

"So what's all this then?" Chance asked waving in the direction of the miniature hospital in the other part of the house, mostly to change the subject.

"That's actually a fully authorised and legal clinic. I bought all the equipment from the compensation money I received from the organisation. The two beds in the back are normally just for ambulant patients to rest for a few hours after a small operation. I treat people for free and the people here appreciate it, so I can finance it mostly with the donations I get." Chance and Winston looked at each other. They were quite sure that the people donating wouldn't want their money spent on an assassin that got himself shot.

"Oh, don't worry" the doc said as she caught the guilty look on their faces "Guerrero is having a share in the clinic himself every once in a while. Speaking of which, I'm just gonna go check on him real quick, so if you'll excuse me." When she was gone Chance said:

"Wow, I knew Guerrero knows some weird people, but she's really something else. Wonder why he never told us 'bout her."

"'Cause he would've had to explain where he got to know her and then WE would've asked what the hell he was doing in Burma. Just what WAS he doing there?"

"No idea." Winston wasn't sure if Chance was telling the truth. Chance was poking at his porridge.

"Chance, whatever it is, spit it out."

Chance was trapped, he could either try and explain the Burma incident or what was on his mind _or_ something completely random. But he knew Winston and he knew he _so_ wouldn't fall for it. He wasn't to sell out Guerrero either, so option two it was then. He shrugged, then said as casual as possible:

"I've never seen Guerrero like this."

"Huh. Yeah, seeing people you thought were invincible in that shape can get to you…"

"No… no, I mean I never saw him as somebody who would do something like the doc just described. Ya know, stick around people, help people just for the heck of it."

"He sticks around you." Winston wasn't sure where this conversation was going.

"Yeah, but that's different. What I mean is that he was right. You know when we had the argument. He really DOES do some real good."

"So he does…" and they finished their breakfast in silence.


	5. Chapter 5

**AN:** Okay, now I know crime-scene-technically this is BS, but since they don't exactly focus on these kind of aspects in the series, I thought I'd allow myself to not to either. You may have noticed by now that I totally make up all the street names, I really don't have the time to google street view the whole of SanFran, hope that's alright.

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Chance and Winston felt like sitting ducks. They had no clues to follow and they didn't want to leave anyway as long as they didn't know if Guerrero would be alright, but doing nothing never felt so wrong. Chance wondered if he should break into Guerrero's apartment to look for anything that might help them, but if he knew Guerrero at all, he probably had it booby-trapped for situations exactly like this. There had to be something to, _anything to_-

"His car!" Chance proclaimed suddenly. "It's too far to walk from where he lives and he like to have the possibility to make a quick exit in case things go awry! Normally he takes it to a meeting point like an hour or two early and walks away so that nobody would connect the car to him. It's worth a shot."

"Are you sure you're ready to leave?"

"Winston, I'm fine and the doc said Guerrero was doing a lot better thanks to my blood. She'll call if… anything changes."

"'Kay." Winston didn't seem too convinced, but the urge to investigate took over.

Winston drove along Cromwell's Avenue as they looked for Guerrero's car, but decided it was more likely he parked it in one of the small alleys, so they headed out on foot. It took them nearly an hour til they found Guerrero's Chevy, and it was not in a parking space, nor in one of the alleys, but opposite to the industrial area on a discarded dock. Chance produced a thin crowbar from under his jacket and began manipulating the window at the passenger side while Winston was keeping a lookout.

"Don't look in their direction, but there are two guys over there that've been staring at the car for the last two minutes straight."

"Are their shirts saying 'police'?"

"Wha-? Don't you think I can tell a cop from a bad boy?" Chance pretended to still be working on the door as he looked at the men in the reflection of the window.

"Keep an eye on them while I search the car. They make any move towards our direction… well, you know."

"You don't want to round them up?"

"I don't think I'd stand a chance against them right now." Chance said with some bitterness in his voice. That blood donating thing had really gotten to him.

"Man, that blood donating thing's really gotten to you now, hasn't it?" Chance rolled his eyes as he dove into the car. He found what he was looking for under the backseat: Guerrero's army backpack and his jacket.

"Alright, let's get the hell out of here. Goofs are gone anyway." Winston said, eager to leave that iffy part of town behind. Chance wanted to examine Guerrero's stuff right there but they agreed on taking his car to the loft's garage, so Chance got in while Winston went back to his own car and soon they were driving to the loft, Chance behind Winston.

"Uuuuuh, Winston…" Winston soon heard over his no-hands telephone in his car.

"Yeah, I already know that we're being followed, I was a cop at some point ya know. Whaddcha say we pull an Uncle Rick for our friends in the rear mirror?"

"An Uncle Rick, huh? Sounds good to me, meet you there big guy!" And with that Chance let himself drop back and at the next junction took a last second left turn where Winston drove right. The car behind them was forced to follow Winston's direction, unknowing that they played right into Winston's hands. He took another two right turns and suddenly the bad guys' car found itself in a narrow alley between two old brick buildings with Winston's car stopped only meters in front of them. It took them one second to notice their dire situation and the moment they tried to back out of the alley, Chance's car turned into the alley, effectively blocking their only possible escape route. Weapons drawn, Chance and Winston got out of their cars, but didn't approach the vehicle in the middle any further.

"Out! NOW!" Winston bellowed. Nothing moved in the car. Without further hesitation Winston took aim and shot the windshield right in the middle, so as to scare the hell out of whoever sat behind it without hurting them. It worked. Kind of. The collapsing windshield found the two thugs from before diving for cover, but the moment they tumbled out of the car they started firing back at both Winston and Chance. It was their turn to take cover as all hell broke loose. Winston and Chance had better cover since they were only being shot at from one direction, bit they intended not to kill the surrounded men. Those in return tried shooting their way to freedom with all the measures it took and a few bullets whizzed by much too close for comfort. Chance finally gunned down one of them with a shot to the thigh and the man went down, clutching his leg with both hands. Just as Chance prepared to take a shot at the other guy, he saw him point his weapon at the man on the ground. Before anyone could react the remaining thug shot the injured man in the head and in the same moment darted in Chance's direction. Chance bargained on a close combat but instead the assaulter made a quick zig-zag to the hood of Guerrero's car and with two big leaps went over the roof and started running towards the entrance of the alley. Chance turned around and aimed, but the escapee was just running around the corner, so he took off after him. Winston didn't need to make sure that the man on the ground wasn't still alive and followed Chance. He expected both Chance and his prey to be gone, but when he came around the corner he found Chance just a few dozen yards down the road, hands on his thighs, panting.

"What happened, you alright?" Winston asked as he could see his friend was blinking his eyes open and shut several times.

"Yeah, I…" Chance took one or two deep breaths, but then decided "I need to sit down for a minute." He plopped down on the pavement and rested his chin on his knees, with his hands to the sides of his head.

"I just couldn't run, I became really dizzy. Damnit!"

"Chance, donating blood to Guerrero is more important than shaking those low-lives down-"

"Yeah, that worked like a charm. Now we have three cars with bullet holes and a body and no new information."

"We don't know that yet. C'mon let's get back to the cars. _Unsuspiciously_." Winston added when Chance picked himself and his gun up from the floor.

Back at the alley the cars weren't as bad a sight as the dead man between them. Chance kneeled down and searched his jacket and pants pockets and came up with a cell phone. He immediately flipped it open and was in luck. He was still able to access the caller lists and quickly wrote down the only two numbers that there were.

"You good to drive?" Winston asked. That earned him a menacing glare from Chance, but when he got up he swayed for a second.

"Let's finish this already." he answered ill-tempered as he pocketed the phone and walked back to Guerrero's car. It was missing one side mirror, but it would have to do.

As they finally drove to the loft they made sure they weren't followed again. As soon as they got out of their cars in the garage, Chance flipped through Guerrero's cell phone and stopped dead in his tracks.

"Found anything?" Winston approached him.

"They called the same number. Guerrero and that guy back in the alley." He looked at Winston unsure what to do. Did they just fight against one of Guerrero's friends? Or partners? Chance pressed re-dial in the dead guys' phone, put it on speaker and waited.

"I told you not to call me anymore!" an exasperated female voice answered, then the phone went dead again. Chance dialled the same number from Guerrero's phone, but it was "temporarily unavailable".

"What was that all about?" Winston asked as he saw Chance's surprised reaction.

"No idea. Maybe one of Guerrero's liaisons gone bad?"

"One of- are you telling me Guerrero has whadidchacallit… liaisons? And more than one? But why would those thugs be after- oooooh. You thinking it turned personal and the lady was trying to get rid of him? … Figures."

"No. No it doesn't. Guerrero wouldn't let himself be compromised into a situation like this, and even if it _did _happen, it doesn't explain who else interfered that night in the alley or why he was there at all. I still think it might've something to do with that job I told you about."

Chance tried the second number in the dead guy's phone with no success. Next he rummaged through his friend's backpack and after a while produced a business card for a company called Cybotechs Industries. He handed it to Winston and looked on, but he didn't find anything that seemed to be important. His laptop wasn't there, but he wouldn't be able to hack into that anyway.

"Alright, I'm just gonna pack some stuff for me and Guerrero and we can head back to the doc's place." he said to Winston, but he had disappeared into his office. After fifteen minutes Chance was ready to go, but Winston was still on the phone in his office. When they finally made their way back to the garage Winston explained:  
"So I talked to a buddy of mine about that Cybotechs thing and he told me that a few weeks ago a watchman of their nightshift was sacked and he went to the next pub and started telling all kinds of dirty secrets. Turns out Cybotechs is supposedly working on some sort of high tech warfare system. But wait for the good part: the watchman said the real reason he was let go was 'cause he couldn't explain how the thing made its way out of the building. Whatever it is- it's gone. Cybotechs is trying everything to keep it under the radar and no official investigation was launched 'cause there's no official proof "it" ever existed. Any chance Guerrero has something to do with it?"

"You mean does he help Cybotechs keep their dirty little secret?"

"Man, that's not what I said. I just want to know from you, since you know the guy better, if you can imagine Guerrero to be involved _somehow_." Winston said deliberately over-explaining that he didn't mean to accuse Guerrero of anything.

"I don't know. The whole situation sounds like the kind of stuff he's into, you know, the technical-device-search part, not the denying-a-weapon-of-mass-destruction part. Besides he made it quite clear to me that he wanted to do help someone to justice and I believe him."

"'Kay. So maybe he was hired by someone to find and destroy the thing and Cybotechs intervened at the right moment so that they would know where "it" was and hinder Guerrero at getting to it first."

"But if so few people know of its existence, who would've hired Guerrero?"  
"Someone from the company with a conscience? That would explain the sniper on the roof and the proof of at least on other dead body. Maybe Cybotechs wanted to kill two birds with one stone and went after both Guerrero and his client." Chance didn't seem convinced.

"Guerrero would've calculated this. He doesn't just wander recklessly into a trap. Which is why I think there must be something else going on…"

"Like…?"

Chance opened his mouth to answer when his phone rang. He went pale. With Winston right next to him, Guerrero still unconscious, and no client that he had to consult with, the only person calling him could be the doctor. And she only wanted to call in case Guerrero's condition worsened. Reluctantly he fetched his cell from his jacket pocket and just stared at the display. It was her alright. If he didn't pick up, maybe he could avoid that sinking feeling in his stomach from becoming that of a head-on dive into the void. Winston watched as Chance froze and stared at the display; he knew the feeling all too well himself.

"Chance, pick up." Chance looked at him with an expression of trepidation and finally put the phone to his ear and pressed the button.

Winston saw his mimics go from fear to slight anger to one of surprise and finally he almost shouted "Are you sure? On our way! Thanks!" When Chance looked at Winston again he was smiling.

"Doc said Guerrero's coming around and she wanted us to be there. Let's go!"

Winston looked at his watch. It was four in the afternoon.

"Guess the guy really _is_ a fighter."

*tbc*


	6. Chapter 6

**AN:** Been some time and I gotta admit I'm feeling a bit demotivated right now, cause there's just nothing new to go on, so I'm not like "on the jazz" anymore. I mean, when I first started writing, HT was all new to me, now it already feels old and boring. But the story's in my head (kinda) and it wants to be written, so I sat down for 5hrs yesterday and picked it up. Picked my mood up, as well. So here you go, but I want to apologize in advance to everybody who might feel offended by something in the chapter (you will know what it is when you get there). I want to make it very clear that despite my nationality I am not a nazi, racist, skinhead or whatever terms you might associate with race-sensitive issues, I strictly wrote this because I needed a reason for Winston to stay where he's at and for Chance to go where he's going and nothing else came to mind.

Tl;dr: Sorry it took so long, hope you still follow. I'm not a racist, so don't hate on me. I still own nothing and all the rights on Human Target are reserved to Fox.

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"I think as he's regaining a higher level of consciousness, he starts to feel the pain his body is in and that actually helps him become more alert. He'll still be pretty zoned out, though, so don't expect him to recognize you, or make any sense at all." the doctor said as she led them to the back room. So they grouped around Guerrero and it felt more like waiting for someone's last words than a sign of improvement, but he did look a bit better, Winston found. The doctor stepped to his side and placed a hand on his good shoulder.

"Don't do that. Touching a sleeping, confused Guerrero can be fatal." Chance advised.

"Oh, alright." and the doc retrieved her hand. "Guerrero? Guerrero, can you hear me? It's me, O'Leary. Chance and Winston are here, too. Guerrero! Open your eyes. NOW!" she ordered in a military tone of voice. For almost a minute nothing happened and the doc came again:

"C'mon Guerrero, you can sleep all you want later, but you need to let us know you're as tough as you like to pretend. Maybe you can help us decide who's going to kick your ass first?" she teased.

After a few seconds Guerrero's eyes actually started to open, ever so slowly and they didn't open all the way, but at least he was looking at them.

At this moment Chance wanted to tell him so many things, but he knew that now was not the time and he didn't even know if Guerrero wanted him there, so he remained silent.

"Hey there. Are you with us, Guerrero? You're in my clinic, you were shot, do you remember any of that? You don't need to talk, just let us know if you're following me at all, okay?" It took Guerrero a long time to process these information, but in the end realization dawned on his face. He swallowed a few times and opened his mouth.

"Cait-lin" he whispered. Chance and Winston looked at the doctor at the other side of the bed with raised eyebrows. She just shrugged.

"That's not my name. Told you he'd be pretty muzzy. Guerrero, can you tell me how many fingers you see?" she held up two fingers in front of him. Guerrero frowned, then simply shook his head a little. That was the wrong thing to do. He closed his eyes as a wave of dizziness and bright colours overtook him. The doc waited until she thought he'd be somewhat perceptive again and wanted to ask another question when Chance suddenly intervened.

"Guerrero, who's Caitlin? Was she with you? She the one who tricked you? Or is she your client?" The doc looked like she was about to kick _his _butt from the opposite side of the bed, but Chance had at least provoked some kind of answer from Guerrero:

"Pr'tec' 'er." He didn't look at Chance, but there was a definite Guerrero-like demand in his mumbled whisper.

"We need to protect Caitlin? Who is she, is she connected to Cybot-"

"E-NOUGH with your grilling, there're more important things right now. Guerrero, do you know what your birthday is?" That earned the doctor a half-hearted glare from her patient. He was the only one who knew it, so how would she know he was telling the truth, anyway?

"Alright, alright, but do you also know what day it is?" No glare this time.

"Or do you remember what time of day it was when you called Winston?"

Guerrero closed his eyes in advance this time and gave the tiniest nod.

"Good. Do you remember anything after that?" No reaction.

"Guerrero? Do you remember what happened next? Guerrero?" He didn't answer or show that he had heard her at all.

"Guerrero?" The doc sighed. "He's out again. I can't really estimate how bad his head injury affects him, because he used up his attention range for your little interrogation." She sounded angry and frustrated. "But, on the upper side, if this Caitlin isn't just a creation of his jumbled brain, remembering her is quite the achievement, so at least we know he's not totally fucked up."

The doctor's choice of words made the two men realize how tired she had to be. Besieging her house was one thing, but expecting her to take care of Guerrero twenty-four-seven was a lot to ask for and they knew that.

"So what _is_ your name?" Winston offered to break the awkward silence. The doctor smiled at him wearily.

"It's Fallyn. And since there's nothing I can do for Guerrero right now and he seems to be hanging in there alright, Fallyn is going to catch some zzzs, so if you'll excuse me. Wake me, if anything changes. And I mean _anything_." She quickly checked Guerrero's pulse and then left the two men alone with their unconscious comrade. They were quite tired, too, actually, but Chance's mind was racing.

"Caitlin's either the real victim in this or she's in danger because of what happened in the alley. We need to find her. I think Guerrero was working for her."

"Yeeeaaah, a last name would've been helpful…"

"You a cop or what?" Chance slipped out of the room and after half a minute came back with his laptop already swung open. He sat down on the free bed and waited for the internet connection.

"What, you're setting up _here_?"

"Guerrero might wake up again and say something more. And besides one of us should always keep an eye on him in case his condition worsens. Look at that, the Cybotechs webpage. So we have six "C.s" working there. Two of them are men according to the pictures, so Caitlin could be one of those four." Chance pointed out four faces at the employees page. Winston skipped through their qualifications.

"Yeah, I think she's merely a secretary, she wouldn't know about secret high-tech stuff." he said to one C. Goldsmith.

"I'm not so sure, secretaries have a tendency to be snooping around. What about her, her assignment says "Alternative research administration". Sounds obscure enough."

"Yeah, and look, there's a substitute for her listed next to her, so she's on holiday or something. Or she fled the country."

"You know what I'm thinking?"

"Hmmm, let me guess. Their full names won't come to us via the internet, so we'll have to come to them. You're planning to pay Cybotechs Headquarters a visit."

"I'm going to visit Cybotechs."

"That's what I just- never mind. And how you plan on doing that if you don't want to leave Guerrero's side?" Chance looked up to Winston with his best puppy eyes impression.

"Ooooooooooh no. No, no, no NOOO. Chance you're not going there alone. Some hours ago you needed to sit down in the middle of the street, 'cause you were too weak to run and now you want to roam around a highly secured building? What if you need to make a quick escape? Besides, am I supposed to just sit here waiting until Guerrero stoops to come around?"

"You know what? You're right."

That went just a liiiittle to easy for Winston's experience, but he played the game:

"I. KNOW."

"You do it and I stay here."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Have you looked at the employees' photos?"

"Yes?"

"Aaaaaaaaand?" Chance half-heartedly glanced back at the photos, then shrugged. Winston put on a duuuh-face as he pointed out the obvious:

"Their black-guy quota is drifting towards _zero_."

"Winston, now's not the time to sulk over narrow-minded prejudice-"

"That's not the point. The point is that if I went in there I'd stand out like the literal black sheep."

"Oh. Right. Well, looks like it's gotta be me then, after all." Chance said in a jaunty voice.

"You planned this whole conversation from the beginning, didn't you."

Chance shrugged and grinned up to his friend: "Sorry, black guy."

###

"How's it going?" came Winston's voice over Chance's earpiece.

"Winston, you asked that five minutes ago. It won't go well, if people here catch me mumbling to myself, besides you can hear what's going on anyway. How's it going on your end?" Winston didn't need to know that he was currently alone in the building.

"Oh, ya know, I'm having this terribly interesting chat with Guerrero about your kamikaze tendencies…" Winston replied dryly as he glanced at the still figure of an unconscious Guerrero. Chance chose to ignore this comment. He needed to concentrate anyway to avoid all the security cameras in the building.

Getting inside had actually been easier than he'd expected. All he had to do was to wait for the cleaning crew to leave the building at eight and arrange a little "accident" with the chemicals in their van. Then he walked calmly towards the cleaners and informed them that their van was smoking like an Indian signal fire. When the night watchman also came running to survey the commotion, Chance slipped through the front entrance door and hid under the counter in the foyer. When the watchman came back several minutes later, Chance had already erased his own entrance from the foyer camera's memory card. The guard never knew what hit him, but it was in fact the butt of Chance's gun. He quickly stripped him and put on not only the uniform, but also the bunch of key cards, the torch and the gun he had been carrying. So far so good.

Now he was strolling around the fourth floor, looking for something like a storage room. He didn't need to be invisible, since he was the "watchman" making sure that all the rooms were empty and all the doors secured; he just didn't want to show the cameras his visage.

"Bingo." he let Winston know as he opened yet another door and found himself in administration paradise. With a proficient eye he sorted out the file cabinet interesting to him and started skimming through the employees' files.

"Give me those last names again, will ya."

"'Kay. We have a Burton, a Goldsmith, a Sanchez and my favourite: Leutheuser-Forbes." Winston heard a few seconds of paper rustling, then Chance's voice once more:

"Looks like we're looking for Caitlin Burton."

Winston flashed into action as he scanned the name in the police databases. Then he gave the description to several hospitals and morgues and after a few minutes had good news to declare:

"Chance, looks like we could still be in the game. She hasn't been reported missing, and no Jane Doe fitting her description ended up in the morgue in the last forty-eight hours. No one under this name in the hospitals and no records of her anywhere."

"Address?"

"Chance, you're not going there. God knows what evil-doers might've already paid her a visit. You're not up to it. You come back here and I can go."

"The address is listed in the file, you know."

Winston groaned. "Chance, you really want me to Aunt-Linda you? 'Cause that's how far I'm willing to go to stop you from going to Burton's house alone."

"You wouldn't!" Chance said as he entered another hallway.

"Try me."

"There's a light at the end of the tunnel, Winston."

"Oh yeah? And what would that be?"

"You know, like a light in a room. Someone's still here. Or again."

"Chance, absolutely DON'T go there. We got what we wanted. Now make like a tree and leave."

"Winston, I'm the night watchman, I need to check what's going on. Besides this way I can get some new information."

"No, you're not and no, you _won't_!" But Winston heard Chance turn a door knob. To him it was the sound of Chance getting into trouble. He expected a brief conversation and then a maybe not-so-brief fight, but he didn't expect Chance's surprised exclamation:  
"Caitlin Burton?"


	7. Chapter 7

The woman in the lab looked like a deer caught in the headlights. Then she grabbed the object nearest to her, which was a soldering rod and lunged at Chance. He didn't have time to check if the soldering iron was even hot, so he got into a defensive pose as a skirmish broke out in the doorway.

_That_ was the soundscape Winston expected. He heard a sharp cry from the woman, followed by one from Chance, something made from metal falling o the ground and then quickly departing foot steps.

"Och, not again." Chance sighed. Winston heard him take off after her.

Caitlin Burton had only a small headstart and stilettos and therefore not a chance. Chance tackled her from behind in the dark hallway and used his body weight to keep her from moving any further, although she kept wriggling under him.

"Miss Burton! Miss Burton listen to me, I'm a friend of Guerrero's, you know him, right? He wanted me to protect you. I'm on your side here, so stop – fighting!"

Chance was a bit short of breath and little yellow dots were dancing before his eyes, but fortunately the woman stopped struggling and made an effort turn on her back. He let her, but didn't let go otherwise. He expected her to say something, but she just stared. So he broke the silence:

"Erm, hi there. I'm Christopher Chance. I'm trying to help you here and since you gave me a nice little brand here with your soldering iron I say you could use some help. Now, I'm not a watchman, I know that, but how'd you know?"

"Those jerks never make their rounds till eleven. Get off of me."

"Only if you won't run. Told you, I'm a friend of Guerrero's. He was helping you with something, wasn't he?" Her eyes grew wide.

"'_Was_'? Is he-"

"No, he's not, but he won't be able to finish the job, so he sent us."

"_Us_."

"I have a partner, Winston. We try to rid people of their problems."

"I don't believe a word."

"I thought you might feel that way. I'm going to show you something, but I need to pull it out of my pocket, so don't freak."

"You're still pinning me down, so what alternative have I got…"

"Exactly."

Winston of course couldn't see whatever Chance handed Caitlin Burton, but her reaction to it surprised him:

"For all I know you could've photoshopped yourself into that."

"Agreed, but if you know Guerrero even a little, you know how cautious he is with private matters, so how would I've acquired a picture of him in a hula outfit in the first place?"

If Winston had had his mouth full of coffee at that moment, he would've spattered it all over the room. Given that he didn't he just sat there, mouth open and tried to un-see the image from his mind.

"Thanks for painting that one out for me, Chance." But then an evil plan formed in his mind. If he could lay his hands on said photograph, the days of Guerrero manipulating him in whatever way he wished would be _sooooooo _over.

"Good point." Burton said.

"Fine, now that that's settled, you mind telling me what you were doing here?"

"Uuuuh, it's kind of a long story."

"I figured that much. Let's get out of here and meet my partner and you can tell that long story of yours."

"Where're we going?"

"Good question. Winston?"

"I say we meet at the loft. Guerrero's doing okay and the doctor just got up."

"Okay, meet you there." On their way back to the foyer Chance explained to Burton that Guerrero thought she was in danger and since they didn't know what was going on, she wouldn't be able to go back to her apartment for a while. She took that relatively well. Just as they entered the entrance hall, another guard strolled in through the front entrance. Instinctively both men drew their weapons immediately, pointing them at each other's chests from opposite sides of the hall.

"Didn't you say they don't appear until eleven?" Chance muttered through his teeth.

"Miss Burton, are you alright? What is going on here? Why aren't you at your desk?" the watchman called.

"I was just about to escort Miss Burton to her vehicle. She thought someone was in the building and became scared, so I went up and we came down here together." Chance answered. He slowly lowered his weapon to show that he meant no harm. The real watchman didn't.

"Oh really? And who are you? Never seen you here before" he said, clearly mistrustful.

"Yeah, that's because I'm the replacement for what's his name again, the guy that was sacked the other day…" The question was for Winston and he hoped he got the hint.

"I thought Miller was supposed to do his shift tonight."

"Foster! That was his name. Yeah, that's right, Miller was supposed to fill in for him, but I can use some extra-shifts, ya know with the baby on its way and all, so I said I'd do it."

"Oh. Alright then." And he finally packed away his gun. "But you should never leave the door unattended without consulting the watchman outside first, got that?"

"You bet. Imma check real quick with the video to be sure nobody went in while I was upstairs. If you would wait here for a moment, Miss Burton." Chance slipped behind the counter and tipped his hat when the other watchman left.

"Maaan, that was close" he heard Winston in his ear.

"Meh, it's no good, he practically got a close-up of my face, Winston."

"That don't matter, with the whole cover-up that's already going on here, they won't make it public that a false guard strolled into their building. Besides, there's no picture of you in any database to compare your face to."

"Yeah, not yet…" Chance didn't seem too happy with the encounter, but he didn't want to start shooting people before it was necessary. Nobody deserved to die. He cut out the footage of him and Burton wrestling in the hallway, then put the camera on freeze frame, so that they could leave unseen. Like before he carefully got rid of any finger prints he might've left behind and finally picked up his pile of clothes from under the desk. The real watchman was still out.

"Let's get out of here." He grabbed Caitlin by the arm and they hastened to the door. After a quick glance to the left and right they arrived at the relative safety of Burton's car.

"I'm driving!" they declared simultaneously.

"Look, mister, I barely know you, I won't let you take this last bit of control from me. Just tell me where to go."

"'kay. Can I call you Caitlin?"

###

Back at the loft they sat down together after Chance introduced Winston and Caitlin to each other and put a pack of ice on his forearm. Winston hoped that Chance wouldn't fall for her or anything. Or that Guerrero had. With her round face, big dark eyes and blond hair she was quite attractive. Right now, however, she was an unconfident picture of misery.

"I really don't remember how all of this started. It was like, one morning I walked in my office and I just… woke up. That's when I realized that I was helping to construct some kind of warfare device. In short it messes up the electromagnetic waves produced by the human brain. While it doesn't kill you, it _does _leave you totally helpless, disoriented, possibly in pain. Truth is it's never been tested, so nobody can say what effects it'd really have and if they'd be permanent. Which just makes it all the more dangerous and unethical. It's only about the size of a soda can and since my task at Cybotechs was to develop a system, that can neutralize the nocuous waves that emanate from "it", my bet is-"

"-they want to endow our soldiers with the weapons and the neutralization devices and let them loose on the unsuspecting forces of other countries to fry their brains." Winston completed the terrible thought for her. Caitlin nodded sadly.

"Like I said, it's not even in the testing phase yet, hell, it doesn't even have a proper name, we just used to call it '7up'-"

"-because of the soda pop." Chance stated the obvious.

"That too. But also because it's supposed to work best at a perimeter of seven or more yards. In theory the human organism, all organisms on that planet are connected via some universal frequency radiating from the planet itself. I know it sounds esoteric, but nonetheless certain parties try to find a way to interfere with those natural frequencies by designing their own. Those could be able to impair, restrict or boost organisms that aren't used to them in ways I don't even want to imagine."

"Certain parties like Cybotechs." Winston pushed further.

"Unfortunatley yes. So when I discovered what I had done I threatened to go public with 7up and quit."

"So _they_ threatened _you _in return?"

"Not they, only one person. Richard Garson. He's supposedly Cybotechs' vice director, but really, they all did his bidding, _we_ all did. As far as I know he initiated the whole 7up thing. He made it clear to me that if I didn't finish my job and if I dared to go public, I'd be the first lab rat for the 7up."

"And that's when you found Guerrero."

"Well, it's more like Guerrero found me. One night I received a call from the company- they told me the 7up was gone."

"_Gone? _That ain't good."

"I was interrogated by some private security jerks for hours, but they couldn't prove anything and since nobody knew about 7up anyway, they couldn't press any charges. When I came home in the morning, he just sat in my kitchen eating my pop tarts." She laughed a little. "He told me that it was due to his 'influence' that Cybotechs had let me go and that that was a foretaste of the help he could offer. I didn't know what to do, so I hired him. I wanted him to find proof that I don't have the 7up and if possible locate it."

"And if he knew where it was, what was he supposed to do with it?" Chance was curious, because he saw what a difficult position Guerrero had manoeuvred himself into.

"We discussed that a lot. The best thing to do would be to destroy it, but Guerrero knew that this would mean my end as well, because I'm Cybotechs' scapegoat and they want their weapon back. I just want out."

"If you give it back, you might live, but they could still blackmail you and bring their dirty little project to perfection."

"I think you're screwed either way. You know too much and you're against 7up. That's normally a deadly combo." Chance said calmly. Winston and Chance locked eyes. Bring the threat to the surface. Eliminate it. Caitlin cleared her throat.

"That's what Guerrero figured. Which is why he scraped up a whole mountain of proof of Garson's crimes. Don't ask me how. He said it would give him an equivalent strong medium to put Garson and his associates under pressure while at the same time detract the focus from the 7up."

"And did he find it?" Winston asked. Caitlin shook her head.

"Dunno. He never told me. But I was there when he called Garson to tell him that they would 'negotiate', he said. He told him about some of the better stuff he had collected against him and explained that if either he or I died, vanished or got hurt, this would go right to the district attorney." Caitlin dropped her gaze and inspected her hands.

"He practically had Garson on toast. I don't know what happened, but that was the last time I saw Guerrero. And Garson."

Winston's and Chance's eyes met and both looked alarmed. They knew what the other thought about: the ominous blood spatter in the alley. Caitlin seemed lost in thoughts, so some seconds passed before she noticed the penny that had silently dropped between Chance and Winston.

"You know what happened, don't you? What happened to Guerrero, where is he? Did he kill Garson?" Again Chance and Winston looked at each other. They didn't know. Had he? But then where was Garson's body?

"Whatever happened to Garson, just because he's absent doesn't mean he's no threat to you anymore, so you were right to be careful back at Cybotechs'." Chance said when he had enough of all the questions in his head. Right now they had to focus on Caitlin.

"What were you doing there?" Chance dug deeper. "And how did you get in?"

"That was easy. When Garson vanished, anarchy took over Cybotechs' management. Those who were involved in his shady plans panicked because of his absence and found themselves some holes to hide in. Those who were clueless had no reason to keep me from my work. It's not unusual for me to stay late, either. I was looking for a structural design of the 7up's electronics. It's the only non-digital evidence of its existence. Guerrero wanted to take care of the rest on the computers. Can I talk to him?"

"No, not right now. You'll stay here the next couple of days. As long as you stay inside, you'll be safe, 'cause nobody knows you're here." Winston explained.

"If you say so. And what'll you two be doing?"

***tbc***

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**AN:** Huh, so now the secret's out. I know the chapter's a bit ridiculous in some parts, what with the photo and the concept and name of the weapon and I really hope I didn't scare y'all away from my story now that it's got an actual plot. **Please tell me what you think**. Also one reviewer told me my chapters would be very long, so should I split them into smaller bits?


	8. Chapter 8

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Author's Note: A wild term paper appears! I choose you, Procrasdinial! Procrasdinial uses "Write something completely different"! It's super effective!

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###

Chance was lying on the bed next to Guerrero's, absent-mindedly playing with Guerrero's phone. He had gone back to Fallyn's place, Winston was staying at the loft with Caitlin. It was nearly eleven at night and Chance's eyes fell shut repeatedly. Finally he gave up the fight and fell asleep. He slept for about two hours when he jerked awake from a very strange dream in which Caitlin was poisoned from a sip of a 7up soda can. Chance sat up and ran his hands over his face and hair. Sleepiness still absorbed his coherence, so he blinked a few times and tried to focus on where he was and why and finally the events of the last almost twenty four hours came back to him. He just wanted to get himself something to drink when his eyes caught a movement. Guerrero's right arm slowly rose and came to rest on his stomach, his hand resting at the abused part of his rib cage. His eyes were still closed, but his hand pressed lightly where a thick layer of bandages covered the wound from the bullet as if the touch alone could ease some of the pain. Or was he trapped in a dream where he was still trying to stop the bleeding? Chance didn't know whether to talk to him or not. Guerrero's eyebrows knit, he shifted, but didn't quite come around for some minutes. Then he opened his eyes. He let them wander around the room, then over himself and finally he moved his head towards Chance's direction as if he had always known him at his side and looked at him. Chance opened his mouth, but suddenly he didn't know what to say anymore, so he just looked back at him, but the look said what he couldn't verbalise: regret and remorse. It was Guerrero who broke the silence:

"Hey dude." he croaked.

„Hey." Chance smiled at him. "It's good to see you around." Guerrero smiled back at him, although it was more of a flinch and turned his head, so that he was watching his feet again.

"How you feeling? You were awake a few times before, but maybe you don't remember."

"Put me out of my misery."

"Yeah, Fallyn doesn't want to give you any painkillers yet, sorry." Guerrero seemed to have to concentrate very hard to figure out what was missing in the picture. Finally it came to him:

"Winston?"

"Back at the loft, with Caitlin." Guerrero's eyebrows rose to form an unasked question.

"You told us to find and protect her. So we did. Don't remember that either, huh."

"Nope. All a big fuzz." They fell quiet for a bit.

"The guy kinda saved my life…" It seemed to take Guerrero all his will formulate this alleged defeat in his self-imposed battle against Winston.

"Yeah, I know." Chance said a little depressed. He wanted to tell him that he was sorry and that Guerrero could have called him or asked for his help, but Chance and Guerrero, well they didn't really deal with this kind of stuff, the friendship part of stuff. Or did they?

"Listen, Guerrero, uh I just wanted, I mean I'm-"

"Dude, me too. Let's forget about it." Nope, apparently they didn't. But everything was settled between them, so it was time to move on.

"Guerrero, Caitlin told us about the whole 7up thing and Garson and said you wanted to "negotiate"? That's what was supposed to go down in the alley, wasn't it? Do you remember what happened?"

Guerrero stayed silent for a long time, thinking.

"Dunno, dude. I was to meet Garson, but when he turned up… there were five of him… them."

"Did you hit your head _before _the meeting?"

Guerrero smirked. "His insurance to make it out of the meeting alive. Five dudes in black suites with black masks. Hoped I wouldn't dare kill them all."

"Why didn't you? I mean, you could've killed Garson for the past two weeks and all of Caitlin's problems would've been solved."

"Yeeaahnoooo. Thought he knew where the 7up was, but then I didn't find any real proof that he took it. But, you know… is more fun to let him stew in his personal hell of my blackmail. Besides, if Garson turned up dead Cybotechs might decide that Caitlin's the one that made him go away and hunt her down for good."

"'Fun'? The man developed a weapon of mass destruction, he's a total low-life."

"Yup. Which is why I killed him. In the alley. Maybe."

"Maybe? Since when are you killing people 'maybe'? You're not making an awful lot of sense right now, buddy."

Guerrero shrugged, which was a bad idea. He didn't make a sound, but all the coloring his face had gathered over the last hours suddenly vanished and left Guerrero catching his breath for some seconds.

"Dude… was I shot?" That was when Chance realized it might have been too soon to ask for details.

"Yeah, yeah you were. Oh, and somebody worked you over pretty good, in case you hadn't noticed… blood brother." he said in an attempt to lure the conversation away from Guerrero's failure to remember. Guerrero "jerked" his head in slow motion towards Chance and looked at him with a mixture of oafishness and apocalypse that would have made Chance giggle, but he didn't want to upset his friend any further.

"You didn't."

Chance raised his arm that still sported a band-aid at the crook and mock-waved towards Guerrero's dumb expression.

"Looks like you owe me. 'Bout twenty-four ounces to be exact."

"Dude, I didn't ask you to-"

Chance sighed inwardly. Here we go again, he thought. Maybe it wasn't his brightest idea to bring this up to Guerrero. When Guerrero was in no position to threaten and something was decided without his consultation he usually went to denying that he was dependant on the decision made. He could be weird like that.

"It was a joke, man. Besides, you couldn't exactly've asked since you were a bit _dying_ at the time. You don't owe me, it was the most logical thing to do, simple as that. But I hoped you'd do the same for me." Guerrero looked down to his own arm, that still had a drip attached to it and finally showed the hint of a smile. "Blood brother, uh?"

"Yep. Guerrero, it's important you tell us what went wrong, so that we can guarantee Caitlin's protection, so if you remember _anything_…" Chance tried again.

"I'd shrug my shoulders, but... "

"Winston found a man with a short distance rifle and a bullet hole in his head on the roof of one of the buildings from the alley. That help?"

Guerrero sank back to his brooding silence, then suddenly his eyes widened with realization.

"Actually, it does." He opened his mouth to explain something, but then just squeezed his eyes shut as a splitting headache came rushing back together with his memories.

"Guerrero?"

"Uh, gimme a sec here, dude."

"No, that's it, you can tell me later. You need rest."

Guerrero forced his eyes open. "No." he simply stated and it sounded definite. The determination in his eyes made way for an expression of absent-mindedness as he tried to put himself back to the night in the alley.

_###FLASHBACK###_

Guerrero felt the hairs at the back of his neck rise as he watched five dark figures pour into the alley from his left. Already this wasn't going as planned and he hadn't even started talking. Oh well, I hold all the cards, so relax dude, he told himself as the men lined up in front of him.

"Gentlemen." he nodded politely in their general direction. The second guy to the right said:

"You may regard us as the five limbs of the same body, Mr. Guerrero."

"Oh yeah? I don't see the brains-part anywhere." That went allegedly unheard. The man at the far left picked up the conversation where the other had stopped.

"As we are sure you know we are interested in _not_ getting you killed here and now. You understand it is Mr. Garson's interest to also guarantee his own survival. He is present among us and we will merely make sure that it stays that way. We all play by the rules and we should all be walking out of here unharmed."

Guerrero rocked back and forth on his heels. He hadn't thought about getting a voice sample of Garson, but it didn't matter anyway. He wasn't here to kill, he had too many questions. "Fair enough."

"We assume that you have no intention of dropping the threat to expose Mr. Garson's professional or private business, but we are willing to show to you our cooperation to take the tension out of our current relationship, Mr. Guerrero." the guy in the middle stated in a business-like voice.

"Cut the sweet talk. Do you have it?" The man at the very right piped up:

"Mr. Guerrero, what advantage could Mr. Garson possibly have from making his own invention disappear, moreover when it's not even technically mature yet?"

"Opportunity. Maybe you leaked it to a competing firm out of a personal interest. Maybe you saw the insanity of your little gadget and tried to find a way to get rid of it without showing that you have a conscience? Naaah, scratch that. You figured to sell it now to the highest bidder was easy money. For the countries involved, war is all about the supply of technology, but for the supplier- it's always about money. In my experience- flags don't matter in that business."

The last of them who had remained silent until now objected:

"Surely the same heretofore mentioned motives also apply for Ms. Burton?"

"Yes. And to every other employee assigned to the development of "it". Thing is, I don't hear any denial from you. All I hear is an accusation directed towards a single person. Which makes me think of the word "fly"."

"How so?" the second guy to the left said. Guerrero believed to hear a smirk in the question.

"The fly is the only party that doesn't get anything out of fly fishing. The fish gets the fly. The angler gets the fish. The fly- just gets eaten. Let me explain my way of thinking to you sirs: If you put a fly in the water, it means there's gotta be a fish. Probably a big one." He paused for dramatic effect.

"I'm thinkin' there's an orderer above you that you want to cut out. Sell it directly. So, who is it?" One of the men shook his head, another shifted uncomfortably.

"Mr. Guerrero, have you thought about that it puts Mr. Garson in the exact same position Ms. Burton finds herself in right now, if the thing goes missing without explanation? We can assure you that we have a certain interest ourselves to retrieve it promptly. Hence the pressure we are forced to exercise on Ms. Burton."

"Aaaaaaw, now that's cute. Maybe I should just work for you guys, ya know, let's all pull on the same side of the rope here!" Guerrero said in a cheerful voice before continuing dead-serious:

"Joking aside, your statement tells me three things: One: There really is someone higher than you and you intend to put Ms. Burton between yourselves and the big fish. Two: You're scared shitless because of that someone. Three: I know I work for the right side now. Keep doing whatever it is you feel you need to do and so will I. But you won't get "it" back. If you have nothing else to offer we're done here."

That was when the first shot rang out.

***tbc***


	9. Chapter 9

**AN: Yeeaah, that chapter didn't quite turn out the way I had in mind, but even if it had, it wouldn't be less dispensable. So I won't even beg you to review, how's that as a compensation. Wait, this makes it look like I don't want you to review my chapter, when I just don't want to pressure you like I usually do. Well, whoever will, will, whoever won't, won't.**_

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_

_FLASHBACK_

Guerrero couldn't actually _hear_ the shot, but he saw the figure directly opposite of him tumble backwards and then slide limply down the wall. Instinctively Guerrero mimicked his actions at his side of the alley as he let himself fall against the brick building behind him. In a split second his well-trained observance skills calculated that the shooter had to be on the roof of the building he was leaning against, somewhere to his right, so he hoped to be in a dead or at least hard to get at angle for the sniper. Several other things then all registered simultaneously: Because of the dark he couldn't see where the fake Garson had been hit; more bullets kept hitting the wall where the four remaining Garsons ran for cover; the one nearest to him made a motion that Guerrero knew all too well and just wished he could perform himself in that moment: he was reaching for a gun.

Guerrero's mind was racing as he found himself oddly out of options: he knew the only tactic to survive a close range shooting was to move _towards_ the shooter, not away from him. But if he tried to disarm the Garson with the gun in front of him, he'd put himself right in the path of the sniper. _Why's he trying to shoot me, anyway?_ Guerrero wondered when he realized that this was not the time for this kind of conundrum.

He saw the guy to his left point the gun at him at slow motion and found himself start up and towards the attacker out of instinct. Real-time finally caught up to him as he pushed the assaulter's arm to the right with a quick jab while he shoved him away from himself with a forceful hit to the Garson's chin. He could definitely hear the shot that went off when the man in front of him tumbled into the fake Garson that had been looking for cover behind him. Guerrero felt a projectile whiz past between his hip and arm, but couldn't tell if it was from the gun that was still attached to the man's hand in front of him or from the sniper. With another quick move he grabbed the falling man's forearm, turned it and slammed it over his knee. That not only made the thug let go of the gun, but also broke his radius. The gun clattered to the ground. Both Guerrero and the injured man made a dash for it, but the latter was gunned down by the sniper and ended up flat over the gun on his stomach. Just as Guerrero wanted to unbury it, a heavy blow hit his neck from behind. He did a dive over the body on the ground before the shock of the blow could even register in his brain. From his kneeling position again he noted various things: now there were three men coming at him from behind and: apparently the man that had gone down first wasn't dead. He came towards Guerrero with a metal rod that he grabbed with both hands.

_Great, where's the sniper when you need him?_ He didn't have time for more thoughts as the man in front of him struck out. He ducked and landed on the dead body which probably saved his life as the sharp-edged end of the metal rod hit the fake Garson behind him in a highly sensitive area. In one fluid motion he fished the gun from under the dead man and shot the man above him straight in the face. He fell against the wall and slid down it again, This time not getting back up. Guerrero knew he had to make a quick decision - _Shoot the sniper or the men behind me first? _-and forced himself to move_. _His killer instincts had long taken over and they estimated that the guy with the big gun on the roof was right now the bigger threat as more bullets ricocheted off the walls surrounding him. Guerrero could have his wicked way with his attackers when he finished the sniper, but for now he needed to put more space between him and them if he wanted to finish the job.

_This is crazy_, he thought, _they want to get me 'cause they think I wanted to get to them with the help of a sniper. I want to get to them, 'cause I have the gun and they try to get to me and the sniper's trying to get all of us._ He almost had to chuckle at this and for a brief moment even considered explaining to the men behind him that the sniper wasn't his idea. Instead he ducked as he felt a bullet whiz by his ear. With that last shot the sniper gave away his position. Guerrero darted for the opposite wall as he raised his arms that immediately aimed at the dark shadow on the roof. The sniper never stood a chance.

Unfortunately neither did Guerrero's ribs as the foot of one of his chasers connected hard with them. He persuaded his body to not kiss the dust, but let go of the gun as a jab to his larynx left him short of breath. _Okaaaaay, so they don't care if I disposed of the sniper for them. And they're quicker than they look. _Guerrero sent two of the three men surrounding him to the floor with well-placed kicks to their shins, kneecaps and groins. As he bent down to pick up the gun the third guy karate-chopped him at the back of his neck that was already hurting from the first blow. Guerrero let himself fall down as he saw one of the Garsons he had just downed grab the gun, so that the bullet meant for him struck the Garson behind him in the chest instead. He didn't seem too fazed. _Bullet proof vests! That's why I can't seem to get to them._ Guerrero realized he needed to change techniques if he wanted to end this quickly. As he went for the guy with the gun, the false Garson at his left went for his kidneys. Guerrero roundhouse-kicked him in the head. Breathing really became quite hurtful. The second he had turned his head towards the attacker behind him, the guy with the gun reached out with his free arm and pulled Guerrero towards his chest and into a choke hold. But instead of grabbing the arm blocking his airway with both of his hands, Guerrero directed the hand with the gun towards the man now facing him and after a bit of a struggle managed to pull the trigger. Due to the resistance of the Garson holding the gun the man in front of Guerrero was only hit in the right upper arm, though.

Although his vision was slowly turning a dark violet, Guerrero had no trouble seeing how he would meet his end. In a desperate fight to stay conscious and keep the men away from the gun he put all his weight on the man choking him and then kicked out with both of his legs. His feet met the destined spot where a blood stain was growing on the sleeve of the guy in front of him and he went down with a yelp of pain. Next he jammed his tantalizer with as much force as his light body could muster into the wall behind him and used the goon's temporary drowsiness to disassemble the gun. He knew he could do it in his sleep, so he didn't need his fading vision, but the man behind him seemed to know what he was up to. Suddenly he removed his arm from Guerrero's throat which was good in a way, because he could get some air into his lungs, but Guerrero found his knees buckle as his muscles couldn't work with the lack of oxygen. He released the magazine from the gun and sank to the floor on his hands and knees with the magazine still in one hand as the dizziness overwhelmed him. A kick against his side slammed him against the wall as Guerrero lost grip on the magazine and went for the combat knife in the sheath attached to his left ankle. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the man with the gun shot wound push himself to a standing position, but before he was fully upright, Guerrero suddenly jumped forward and with a wide, well-directed motion slit the man's throat. With satisfaction he watched him tumble to the ground, this time for good. He was about to face the two remaining thugs when he heard a very familiar clicking behind him. That of a magazine being pushed into the magazine well. Without even turning he dove to the left as he heard the shot. It missed him by an inch. Turning around Guerrero threw his knife towards the hand holding the gun just as it pulled the trigger a second time. The bad guy flinched out of instinct. Of course, speaking in bullet time terms he didn't move much, but it was enough for the bullet to lodge in the side of Guerrero's bottom rib pair instead of in his heart. Guerrero staggered backwards a few steps, then fell flat on his back next to the guy with the slit throat. He knew he couldn't give in to the pain and shock if he wanted to survive this, so he forced himself to not even look at or touch the wound as he got back to his feet, swaying. Clearly the remaining Garsons hadn't counted on Guerrero's fast recovering, so Guerrero found them still staring at the shooter's thumb that seemed to remain attached to his hand by one tendon only and was dangling freely.

Gun and knife both lay between Guerrero and the two bad guys and in an abstruse version of _musical chairs _all three men dove for the two weapons. Instead of trying to pick it up, however, Guerrero simply pulled the gun near him with his foot and with this advantage was able to retrieve it and eliminate the guy nearest to him. As he turned towards the last villain he suddenly found himself hitting the ground as the heavily bleeding wound at his side reminded him of where he should have stayed in the first place. The fake Garson kicked him in the shoulder and sent him violently into the wall behind him. Guerrero felt his already damaged rib cage and the back of his skull connect with the bricks and blacked out. He was too dazed to react rapidly enough as the thug now attacked him with his own knife. He could feel blood on his face which was ironic, because it was this blood that reminded him of the sentence spoken mere minutes ago: _We all play by the rules and we should all be walking out of here unharmed. _Guerrero deflected most of the stabs, but felt himself pass out slowly and though he knew that this was not the time for conversation, it was the only weapon he had left, so he mustered what little breath he could gather and said as clearly as he could:

"Dude, remember what happens if I die." He said it quietly, but that made the threat all the more clear. Suddenly the kicks stopped. He heard the man above him breathe heavily. Guerrero actually meant to ask the man what the hell had happened here, but now that all the violent input was gone, the effects of the beating and the shooting flourished to their overwhelming power and he felt himself drift away. The last thing his mind noticed was the sound of something metal falling to the ground.

_END OF FLASHBACK_

_***tbc***_


	10. Chapter 10

"So ah, you talk to Guerrero?" Winston asked when he met Chance at Fallyn's place the next morning. Caitlin wanted to come, too but Winston thought it was safer for her to stay out of sight, so she sat in the loft, sulking.

"Yeah, we talked."  
"I like the sound of that. What'd he say?" Chance shrugged. No point in discussing his relation with Guerrero with Winston, so he repeated Guerrero's incident in the alley. When he was finished Winston's eyebrows had been raised sceptically for almost ten minutes.

"You sure Guerrero didn't gloss over the real thing so he wouldn't have to admit his defeat over one really good fighter? I don't need to tell you, the guy's got more pride than the beach's got sand." Chance gave him a look.

"Yeeeaaah, I know, you're gonna tell me Guerrero was in no shape to come up with something like this, but I'm sure he'd still be working on his reputation when he's dead." Another, more reproachful look from Chance.

"Okay, that came out wrong. How's he doing anyway?"

"Not that he'd acknowledge it, but he's in quite a bit of pain. He _is_, however more than willing to fess up to how sick he is of being trapped in a bed- and without his laptop."

"_Ooooooh_."

"'_Ooooooh'_?"

"Well, I was wondering why you were sitting in the kitchen when I arrived, but you just answered that for me."

"Don't tell him."

"I'd have to go into the room first and I'm not suicidal."

"Actually I think he wants to talk to you."

"Well, he won't be talking to anyone for the next few hours", Fallyn piped up as she walked into the kitchen. "He's sleeping like a baby."

„Saved by the bell." Winston muttered.

"He's _what_ now?" Chance thought he misheard. "When I fled the room this morning he was all but preparing for the Ironman."

"That's a common reaction to an adrenalin rush due to stress and pain. But he barely slept last night and I gave him a painkiller this morning, so that knocked him out pretty good. But I gotta say, he's holding up way better than I thought. At least his cursing gland seems unharmed."

"Nothing like a Guerrero cursing fit." Chance shook his head, smiling. "Did he get to the Russian part?"

"No, I choked him off way before that." She smiled devilishly. Winton looked at her inquiringly. "Oh, a girl has her ways. And a doctor has a catheter."

"Too. Much. Information." Winston growled. „To think I thought I could learn something from you."

Fallyn O'Leary just shrugged, then got up from the table. "Well, for now Guerrero's not going anywhere and I hope neither are you two, 'cause I got some errands to run for the clinic. Normally today it'd be open, but with Guerrero laid up like that, I'm going to make house calls. One of you should always stay here and call me in case something changes. As Guerrero likes to say: "Whatever's in the fridge is fair game. Seeya, boys!"

When they were alone again Chance strolled to the fridge. "Riiiiight" he said as he saw its contents: an almost empty bottle of milk, a lemon, a block of tofu and several little bottles with pharmaceutical labels on them.

"Gotta love her subtleness." Resigned he plopped back down at the kitchen table.

"Chance, lemme ask you a question here: if Guerrero's story was true-" _the_ look again from Chance- "alright, so when Guerrero's story is true, it'd mean that one man had to get rid of four bodies. Or maybe he had help, but then where were the reinforcements when the shooting started?"

"Well, from the way Guerrero described the men in black they were pros, so I guess one could've done it alone. My guess is he put them out of sight and stored them temporarily in one of the old warehouses, then went into hiding until he felt the coast was clear. They were probably still around there somewhere when you went to investigate the alley."

"But he didn't take the dead guy on the roof with him, so we can assume that he wasn't just another one of the black guys gone rogue."

"Okay. Then who is he?"

"Beats me."

"You wanna know what else is strange? Why did Caitlin tell me not to call her anymore?"

"You mean that was her number you called from the dead guy's phone?"

"Yeah, I'm sure it was her voice. And she's the only connection I can see between Guerrero and the guys we introduced Uncle Rick to."

"Well, obviously they made the connection between Guerrero and Caitlin as well and since they were against Guerrero they were also against Caitlin-"

"-Or the other way around-"

"Either way what I'm thinking is that they threatened Caitlin over the phone and she got upset when she saw the number."

"Sounds about right. I'll ask her what they said to her when I get back to the loft."

"You do that… wait. Are you insinuating something?"

"Am I?"

"Ooooh I dunno, maybe that I'm in for another babysitting-Guerrero-round while you roam around the city trying to find all the answers on your own and getting yourself in trouble?"

"You said that, not me, Winston. But while we're at it, thanks for the offer! Appreciate it!" And with that Chance was on his way to the door.

"Hey, at least pick me up sumthin' to eat, willya!"

###

Chance was about to unlock the door to his loft when he heard Caitlin's voice from inside. Immediately he reached for his hip where he expected to find his gun in its holder, but of course he hadn't taken it with him when he drove to the doc's house late the other night. Plan B needed to be a more thought over version of Plan A, so he listened closely for a minute to know what he would be up against. Caitlin sounded scared and upset, but maybe she was just talking on the phone? Without a sound Chance put down the bag of groceries and unlocked the door. He opened it just enough to peer through and when he couldn't see anybody near the door, he slipped in. _Thank God for well-oiled hinges. No, actually thank Guerrero!_, Chance thought as he made his way towards the nearest weapon in the house. Chance sometimes smiled at his paranoia, but Guerrero said that while it's easy to let the inhabitants of an apartment know when there's danger at hand, it's also quite useful to _not_ let the danger know when the inhabitant's at hand. Chance grabbed a gun stashed under a table and slowly made his way into the apartment. Suddenly he saw a movement behind him and pointed the gun at- Carmine. He came trotting happily towards his owner. "Ssshhh, not now Carmine!" Chance hushed, but Carmine gave a happy yelp. Seconds later Chance heard Caitlin scream and ran towards Winston's office. The man that had shot his partner in crime when Chance and Winston went Uncle-Rick on their pursuers from the dock held a gun to Caitlin's head. Chance knew he meant business, so no words were spoken when Chance unlocked the magazine from his gun, slid it across the floor towards the man and then held his hands up. The rest of the gun he placed on a table at his side.

"So now that that's settled, why don't you tell me what you're here for, 'cause her it's not, or you'd have either killed or kidnapped her by now." The man looked at his hostage, then began walking slowly towards the door.

"Why should I answer your questions. I'm just gonna leave now and if the two of you behave, we'll all live happily ever after." Chance shuddered as he remembered what one of the Garsons had told Guerrero and how that prophecy had turned out.

"Why don't you just stand nicely over there facing the corner while I and Ms. Burton here go on a little walk." the stranger snarled. Chance obeyed as another plan formed in his mind, he just hoped Caitlin would play along. She didn't. Before they made it to the door of the loft, she freaked and attacked her assaulter. Chance quickly came running to her aid and pushed her out of the way, making the fight his. As they struggled for the gun both men took a lot of stick, but finally Chance could disarm him. The man was far from giving up, however and started to fight really dirty, while Chance tried not to harm him too badly, so he could be questioned later. Too late he saw a shaking Caitlin point the gun at the housebreaker. "Caitlin, NO!" Both men looked surprised as she pulled the trigger. The man Chance just tried to keep at bay collapsed in his arms. He turned him around to see if he was still any good and the man looked back at him, a trickle of blood leaving the corner of his mouth.

"You're a dying man. How about you do something good for once in your life and tell us what you know about the 7up, so we can keep it from doing any harm." It was beneath Chance to threaten or hurt a dying man. But he just stared at Caitlin with mild shock and finally offered: "The… bitch just… shot me!" Then his eyes went dull.

"Ain't it the truth." Chance sighed as he got up. "You _do_ realize that killing the only bad guy we had access to isn't awfully helpful, don't cha?" He took the gun from her.

"I… I didn't mean to kill him… I... it looked… like you were in trouble. I just… wanted to help. I'm sorry."

"Well, at least you know how to handle a gun. Sit down. I have to call Winston."

Chance walked away a few steps and called his friend.

"Winston, listen, we need to get Caitlin outta here. Somehow they know she's here or that something's here, whatever it was, the guy that got away in the alley came looking for it."

"WHA-? You mean like AT your place? But how did they- Caitlin okay?"

"She's shaken up, she shot the goon. You need to contact that buddy of yours and we'll have to take her to a safehouse right now. And I need the number of one of Guerrero's aquaintances, I don't know his name, but look for something like uh "entorado" or "entarroder" in his phone. It's still in Guerrero's room, I think. You know the PIN."

"'Kay. I'll call you back in a minute via computer, that way we can scramble the signal. Chance- be careful."

"I wish I was."

Then Chance turned back to Caitlin who was being calmed down by a drivelling Carmine on the couch. "Caitlin, pack your stuff, you're outta here. Put a rush on it."

"Where're we going?"

"Don't know yet." As Chance went back into Winston's office he noticed how thorough the attacker had been, most of the furniture in this part of the loft was untacked and the contents of the drawers were all over the floor. Some chairs and another couch were tipped over. He started the computer and while it booted went back to the dead guy and searched his clothes, but he didn't seem to have taken anything from the apartment. When Winston went online he quickly scribbled down an address and a phone number. Then he went upstairs to check the safe in his apartment which seemed untouched. He had put Guerrero's backpack and computer inside along with what little information he and Winston had gathered about Cybotechs on paper and although he had the urge to take the evidence with him, he figured it was safest if all the stuff stayed where it was for the moment.

"Caitlin, you need to leave the clothes you were wearing here, the sleazebag could've put a transmitter on you for all we know. Comb your hair and check your shoes."

After another five minutes Chance made them leave. Where there was one bad guy, there were probably more and when they appeared on the scene he would be ready, but Caitlin had to be out of harm's way by then. He activated the special alarm system that Guerrero installed for this kind of situation and that wouldn't let anybody even enter the building without being basically electrocuted.

"Alright, on your way out don't touch anything. Let's go."

"Where're we going?"

"Tell you when we're there. Winston's got connections. In the meantime how 'bout you tell me what happened."

*tbc*

* * *

**Since human beings have a tencency to always do what they're told not to, let me try some reverse logic here: Do not, under any circumstances, review this story. It's not like I care what you think or sumthin. Oh and don't you dare to read and review my other story. ... ... ... Yes, I am desperate enough to resort to cynicism.**


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's note: Good news is, I'll be posting shorter chapters for now, so updates will follow more than once a week. Gotta bring this to an end at some point. Bad news is, not much happening in this chapter (although it's important, so you can understand all the connections later), but since nobody's following the story anymore, this don't matter. **

* * *

###

Chance took a lot of detours to make sure they weren't followed, so it took him the rest of the afternoon to get Caitlin out of town and himself back to the city. There he had to call Guerrero's iffy contact, filed in his phone under _enterrador_, a fitting name since he was going to help him get rid of the dead body in his apartment. When he finally showed up he not only did so in an actual hearse, but was ballsy enough to claim an off the charts fee for his services. When Chance mentioned Guerrero, however, his grin faded and he began babbling about special discounts for special customers. Chance didn't ask what exactly made Guerrero a special customer and neither did he ask what would happen with the body, but he did take a photo of the goon's face for a possible identification later. Then suddenly he found himself alone in his ransacked loft with no energy to tidy any of the stuff up and an unsatisfactory feeling of too many questions unanswered. So he drove back to O'Leary's place to discuss this unforeseen development with Winston and maybe Guerrero.

Fallyn forbid them to talk to her patient about the case after Chance had made the mistake to tell her about his nightly conversation with him. So soon after checking up on Guerrero, they found themselves on their way to one of Winston's police buddies while Chance was filling him in on what Caitlin had told him.

"According to Caitlin she didn't hear anyone come in. She heard Carmine growl and went looking for him when she bumped right into the man. He held her at gunpoint the whole time while he searched the loft and she didn't know what to do, so she just hoped he'd keep her alive. When I came home, he threatened to kill her, so I backed off. You know the rest."

"I don't get it. He had no reason to keep her alive, except he thought he could get information outta her. In which case he surely would've kidnapped or tortured her or sumthin'. Instead he pretty much ignored her."

"Caitlin and I wondered about that, too. We're thinking he came there strictly to retrieve the files incriminating Garson, so Guerrero couldn't publish them after what happened in the alley. He probably didn't count on Caitlin being there, or, if he knew, had the order to let her live and when I walked in his chance of abducting or questioning her was gone."

"No. No, he'd have to assume that Caitlin knew about the whereabouts of the files, so why go through the trouble of searching the place when he could've just tickled it out of her?"

"Caitlin said he didn't say much, so he must've known or assumed that Caitlin didn't know." Realization dawned on Chance's face.

"Wha'?"

"He _knew_ that Guerrero doesn't share this kind of information with anybody. Which means they _know_ Guerrero! That also explains how they found my place in the first place! They were one step ahead of him the whole time…"

"Whoa whoa, slow down here for me, Chance. You really think it's likely they could pull up such a profile on Guerrero? The man's Mr. Paranoia, so if they have information about him, it's only what he wanted them to know. I think he made Caitlin look as ignorant as possible to protect her and painted the bull's eye on his own back, so they'd come looking for him, not her-"  
"Like a human target." Chance acknowledged. "That doesn't explain how they connect _my_ loft to him."

"Yeah it does." Chance's eyebrows rose doubtingly at that.

"The car. When we found Guerrero's car, we assumed we bet the two thugs to it. What if we only disturbed them? They could've put a transmitter on it first, then got disturbed by us before they could open the car up."

"Why would they wanna put a transmitter on a car that's abandoned and right before them?"

"It's the only hint they had left that could lead them to the files. They wanted to wait and see who would pick it up and where it'd take them."

"Okay. So they know where Guerrero's car is, but failed to get what they were looking for. Sooner or later they're gonna come back. If they're staking the place out, chances are they're burning the whole place to the ground right now. Make sure the evidence is gone for good."

"They wouldn't dare. They know Guerrero is alive, so they would have to fear that Guerrero takes the files to the district attorney as soon as they make another move. Actually, paying your apartment a visit was pretty dumb. Bet Garson's expecting the police on his doorstep every minute, so Guerrero's little torture might even work out. Assuming that the real Garson survived the massacre in the alley."

"A dead Garson couldn't probably care less about his reputation. So this either isn't about Garson anymore or he's alive alright. Who else would be interested in Garson's criminal history?"  
"Cybotechs. If it goes public that they hired Blofeld their sponsors will want to distance themselves from the company, dontcha think."

"Who's Blofeld?"

"The James Bond villain? Developed a deadly virus to catapult Britain's economy back to the Middle Ages… never mind, we're there. Turn over here."

###

"Vilem Novacek. Usually goes by the street name "Vile". That's your guy. Wasn't easy to track him down, though. He's not in the national databases and I pulled this info off a database of the Czech Republic." Curt, a researcher who used to supply Winston with information both officially and inofficially back in his days as a cop, pinched the bridge of his nose and looked up at Winston.

"Says here he and his two brothers came to the U.S. in 2002. Their rep sheets go from bank heist to people smuggling to premeditated murder in the Czech Republic. They were never pinned down here due to lack of evidence, but from what it looks like they just upped the game when they arrived here. In eight years, none of them got convicted or even locked up, so they know what they're doing."

"Can you pull up pictures of his brothers?" Chance asked. Curt adjusted his glasses.

"Sure, what difference does it make if I use one more access code, I'm not even supposed to have. Here you go." His hands flew over the keyboard and three pictures turned up on the screen. One of them was a slightly younger Vile Novacek. The guy in the middle they had never seen before. The third man-

"That's the guy Novacek shot in the alley!" Chance exclaimed.

"Yeah, he shot his own brother straight in the face." Winston shook his head.

"Wait, woah. You telling me that Miklos Novacek is dead? I should probably report that to someone. Winston, what kind of crap are we stepping in here right now?" the cop in front of the computer asked.

"The worst kind. We're still missing one brother. Could still be out there, waiting for more instructions from-" Before Winston could give away any clues to his too eager police buddy, his cell phone started ringing.

"Yeah… … he's WHAT? What do you mean 'GONE'? Wha-… are there any signs of a struggle or-" Chance's head shot up, eyebrows raised as Winston listened to whomever had called him.

"No, stay put. We're headed back to you now." He hung up.

"Tell me this isn't about Guerrero."

"Sorry, Chance. He's gone."

***tbc***


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's note: Sorry, again just dialogue, no action. Consider it the calm before the storm.**

* * *

###

Chance took in every detail of the room Guerrero had been occupying in Fallyn's house. There wasn't much to see, everything seemed in order, except for the sheets on his bed and the missing pile of clothes Chance had brought Guerrero from the loft. He turned around to Fallyn.

"Have you checked your medical cabinets? Are there any meds missing?"

"Uh, no I haven't. " Fallyn was in shock. She thought it was her fault Guerrero was gone. She had drugged him up, so he couldn't defend himself against whoever had apparently breached her house. And she hadn't even noticed anything from her living room on the second floor. As she started her inventory in the next room, Winston entered the sickroom.

"No marks on either door or the windows. Road's in front of the house, but nobody saw anything. If Guerrero was still out, they would've carried him outta here and there's no way they could do that in a non-suspicious way. I dunno, I'm beginning to think they stuffed him in a bag, flew up the chimney and made their getaway on a sleigh pulled by reindeer."

"There's no chimney, Winston."

"Just saying, they knew what they were doing. Or he. Pretty sure Barry Novacek could pull this off. We still don't know where he is."

"Look, Winston, we know Guerrero would've put up a fight if he was conscious, but apparently he didn't. If he was unconscious and they wanted to pull off a quick grab-'n-run, they wouldn't have packed his clothes. Winston, I think he walked out of here himself and on his own."

"Wha- you saying he kidnapped himself? What kind of a maniac is he? Don't answer that!" Chance just smiled. He should have seen it coming.

"What's so funny now? Don't tell me you approve of a man in Guerrero's condition to… go… wherever he's going. What was he thinking? You know what- I don't even care." Despite his statement Winston was fuming.

"It makes sense, Winston. He hates to be dependant on other people, that includes Fallyn, but also you and me. He wants to get to the bottom of this himself. And he can't do that as long as he's cut off every source of information in here."

"So, you won't actually go look for him or anything."

"What's the point? The dude wants to disappear, he disappears. He'll come around. Stop worrying."

"I'm _not _worried, no, I'm… relieved. Wouldn't go after the fool anyway."

Chance chuckled at Winston's unintended Mr.T impression. They soon succeeded to change Fallyn's mood from very worried to very angry and left for the loft. Chance went straight for the garage as he wanted to check Guerrero's car for any devices, so Winston let himself in and went straight for the kitchen to make coffee. The way turned out to be an obstacle course as he noticed that Chance had been too lazy to clear the mess the oldest of the Novaceks had caused here. At least he was rewarded with a steaming hot pot of fresh coffee as he entered the kitchen. _Wait- what?_

"Hey dude." came a very familiar voice from his far left. Winston froze and turned. _Of course,_ he thought and sighing he poured himself a brew, then wandered over to where a low coffee table and a couch still stood upright.

Guerrero had his bare feet on the table and his laptop in his lap. On the armrest to his left lay his gun, at his right side Carmine was looking interestedly at Guerrero's screen. Carmine's back sported a writing pad and a pen and as Winston observed Guerrero added another doodle and a word or two on it. Guerrero didn't pay him too much attention, but when Winston failed to show any sign of movement, he finally said:

"Like what you did with the place. Only you'll have to find your own seat."

Winston didn't dream of doing what he was told by Guerrero, so he just stood there, coffee mug in hand. Guerrero finally looked up. Winston almost gleefully noted that the paleness in his face was back.

"Where's Caitlin?"

"She's safe. How did you-"

"Figured that. What happened here?"

"A mercenary called Vile Novacek was looking for something. How did you figure-"

"One guy did this? Impressing. Dude, _sit down_. Explain."

"_No_. You first." Guerrero's look screamed murder, but Winston also found a weariness in his eyes that made him remember how sick the man on the couch was, although he did a good job of hiding it.

"Where's Chance?" was all Guerrero offered.

"Checking your car for counter intelligence. Geez, Guerrero, I know you're making this extra-hard, 'cause it's me, but this is not about me. So how about you start with why you just stole out of O'Leary's house _without. a. word_."

"Dude, the woman's got a clinic to run. I can't hold her up forever. She's done more than her part. Fallyn knows me, alright? She understands."

"Oh really. Is that why I received a panicky call from her, explaining to me you were kidnapped?" Guerrero gaped at him for a moment.

"Uh, guess I gotta call to make, then." He began to reach for his phone on the table, but started when the pain in his torso prevented him from moving any further. Very slowly, he leaned back again and after a moment addressed Winston with frustration plain in his voice:

"Little help here, dude?" Instead of getting Guerrero's phone, Winston picked up the pill container next to it. The lid was still sealed.

"Actually I don't think calling her right now is a good idea. We told her you ran off and she might not want to hear it from you in the middle of the night. You took these painkillers from O'Leary's place, but didn't take any, why?"

"Dude, the stuff makes me think in hexagons and circles."

"You're already thinking in hexagons and circles" Winston nodded toward the scribbling on the pad "What's all this?"

"Just trying some things out."

"Oh yeah? Did you try out the probability that Novacek put a bug in here when he went on his little recovery mission?" Guerrero actually gave him a bitch-please-look.

"Dude, the whole loft's been under the best IS protection since I first set foot in here. Emission of Interfering Signals." he added impatiently at Winston's questioning look.

"And finding the place like this didn't make you, I dunno, wanna inform me or Chance?"

"Overheard your conversation with Chance. I was not as out as Fallyn would've wanted me to."

"So you came here knowing perfectly well that our surprise guest could come back any time and finish you in a second?"

"You wanna test me on that, dude?" Winston found himself staring into the muzzle of Guerrero's gun before he could even react. When after a few long seconds Guerrero put it away, however, he looked more drained than ever. With Guerrero's mood being on the ground of a very deep pit, Winston chose not to comment on that and instead took a sip of coffee- which turned out to be unenjoyably pungent.

"What the hell _is this_?"

"Caffeine, Winston." Chance joined their awkward gathering. "Makes you more coherent while at the same time helping to keep the pain at bay. How you feelin'?"

"Next time, dude, don't forget to bring socks."

"I was kinda hoping there wouldn't be a 'next time'. Besides, I just grabbed the pile that _you_ were insistent on depositing here."

"Point taken."

"So, you crashing here tonight? Guess I'll go look for a pillow and a blankie."

"Let me do that." And with that sorry excuse for an excuse Winston ditched his coffee and set off towards the stairs. Chance unceremoniously threw Carmine off the couch and took his place. Guerrero flinched when Chance's weight made the cushions shift.

"Dude, what's he so pissed about?"

"He's not pissed. Winston's just reached the end of his tether. Alright, so maybe he's pissed. I'd be, too if I hadn't known you for so long. I'd definitely be in Winston's place. He's your friend, Guerrero, start treating him like one. Same goes for Fallyn."

"When you're done with your little love-for-the-world-speech, you're gonna show me what you found in my car?"

"The Novaceks never made it into your car. But I found this in the exhaust." He tossed a transmitter in Guerrero's direction. He didn't even try to catch it.

"That's as standard as they come. Won't help us any." Guerrero dismissed it. "What else?"

"The bug Winston picked up in the alley. I'll go get him."

When they came back they found Guerrero frowning at another of his sketches. A lot of lines, some of them scratched out, connected several geometrical forms, some of which had question marks in them.

"You've had enough coffee, dontcha think?" Winston growled at him.

"You're right, Winston. Which makes the blanket you're holding redundant. Whatcha got there?" Winston handed over the device found in the alley.

"It's a mic alright. Unfortunately it's for life stream only. But this one you don't put on people, you keep it with yourself. Can pick up noises from a few hundred yards away."

"So none of the Garsons would have use for it."

"My guess is, the sniper dropped it when I finished him."

"So he was eavesdropping on your conversation before he began firing at you. Why?"

Guerrero triumphantly waved the writing pad in Winston's direction. "Gonna find out, dude. The night's still young."

"Yeah well, not for me, so I'm outta here. 'Night, Chance, see ya guys tomorrow."

"'Night, Winston." Chance did a 360° turn til he was facing Guerrero again and found he couldn't avoid the inevitable any longer.

"Soooooo, I guess you won't get your ass off the couch to help me tidy up this mess?" Guerrero snorted and without another word went back to typing away on his keyboard.

The next three hours passed in relative silence while Chance bustled about his apartment and let Guerrero do his stuff, the silence being disrupted only by short conversations in which they pondered different possibilities of who was in posession of the 7up and why. At the end Guerrero grew more and more quiet and all Chance learned was that no files had ever existed on Garson, since Guerrero had stashed the most important stuff only in his head and the rest on his laptop.

"That's the reason you didn't hand it over yet, 'cause there was nothing to hand over, on paper at least. But what you're waiting for now?"

"All in its proper time, dude. I might have to go back to Garson and he's no use to me in jail."

"Well, it's my time to catch some zzzs. You got your coffee, you got your dog, your computer and your blanket. And the painkillers. Just yell if you need anything else."

"Seeya in the morning, bro."

Chance hesitated. "Just, you know…"

"…Don't overdo it? Dude, I'm way past this. This thing is personal now."

Chance still didn't move. When Guerrero spoke that last sentence he had seen or heard, maybe just felt something that sent cold shivers down his spine. Guerrero was on a mission.

"I know. That doesn't mean you gotta do it alone."

***tbc***

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I'm still trying hard to produce some output here, how about you guys? Click that review button!


	13. Chapter 13

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**Author's note: Good news, everybody! I haz a beta-reader now, so tree979 will make sure that all those pesky 'Germanisms' won't keep you from reviewing my chapters any longer. **

This chapter and the following will answer all your questions, and I'm actually kind of proud of them. Let me know what you think of how things are turning out. Have fun!

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When Winston entered the loft the next morning, nobody was up yet. Guerrero was passed out on the couch, covered by the blanket he had rejected the night before, with Carmine warming his feet. He noticed that the pill bottle was no longer sealed. Guerrero's laptop was still running and when Winston activated the screen it showed several crime scene photos of the sniper on the roof. Then he found the writing pad, but just as he leaned forward to pick it up, he saw a sudden movement out of the corner of his eye and once again found himself staring down the muzzle of Guerrero's weapon. Guerrero stared at him wild-eyed for a second, then it seemed as if he was forming a sassy remark, but in the end he just settled for "Sorry, dude. Thought you were someone else."

"Oh yeah? Who're you so afraid of?" Guerrero ignored him and eyeballed the large bag Winston had brought with him.

"Breakfast. And no, you won't get more just because Chance isn't up yet. So, what's this fella's story then?" Winston nodded toward the picture of the sniper.

"Not hungry anyway, but loo who's talking." Guerrero shot a meaningful look at Winston's generous waistline. "Meet Blazej Novacek, the third and last of our Czech trio. Was known here as 'Barry'. Obviously he's the guy I popped, don't have much else on him."

"Still it's safe to assume that they were hired and working together. Obviously he was not on your or Garson's side, so that arises the question who the third player is."

"Goooood morning, ladies! Smells like cinnamon buns in here. Where's the coffee?"

"Well, somebody's in a good mood today…" Winston remarked as Chance came towards them, stretching his arms over his head.

"Yeah, I feel like we're on the verge of breaking that mess of a case. I wouldn't mind wrapping it up and I'm sure neither would you two, so, Guerrero, how do you wanna play it?"

Over breakfast they discussed several possibilities on who would want Garson dead and although not in as foul a mood as the night before, Guerrero's contributions were scarce. He wanted to have Caitlin back with them since she was still his client and could probably help them with the possible enemies to the firm. After a short face-off with Winston he begrudgingly acknowledged that he felt unfit to go on a car ride, so Winston was going to bring her back to Chance's loft.

###

"Guerrero! Oh my god, what happened to you? Where have you been? I am _so_ sorry. This is all my fault."

Guerrero once again sat on the couch and in front of his laptop and smiled weakly as Caitlin looked him up and down with big eyes. To Chance, who sat opposite of him, he actually looked a lot better, even the deadly glint in his eyes was back. Winston gestured for her to take a seat next to Chance and then sat down in an armchair facing them.

"Hey, Caitlin. How're you doing? I heard you popped that Novacek guy? Must've been tough."

"I thought I'd help Chance, but now that Novacek can't answer any more questions, I'm not sure where that leaves me…"

"That's what we brought you here for, Miss Burton, to discuss your possibilities and see if we can figure this thing out with your help." Winston stated. Guerrero nodded.

"You hired me to find out where the thing is and who would wanna take it and why. So far we haven't been able to answer any of those questions. That's 'cause we looked at it from the wrong angle. So I changed my perspective and I finally got some good news."

"You do?" Doubt was evident in Winston's voice.

"And- what is it?" Caitlin asked anxiously.

"I have bad news as well. But let me start with the good part: I know who's got the 7up." Guerrrero looked from Chance to Winston, then to Caitlin.

"Garson has it."

"_Garson! _But he's the one wanting it back-" Winston protested.

"I know. That's where the bad news start."

"Wha- what are the bad news?" Caitlin piped up. Guerrero smirked.

"Bad news, Caitlin, is that _you_ knew that all along."

If Chance was surprised he didn't show it. Both Winston and Caitlin however had put on their best What-the-fuck-impression. Before Winston could verbalize his, Guerrero went on:

"When you confronted Garson, he was smart enough to make the 7up disappear, so it wouldn't run the risk of being destroyed by you. What he didn't know was that you never intended to destroy it. You went to him only to make sure you'd be standing on the outside when the roof caved in."

"I… I don't understand. What do you-" Guerrero cut her off.

"You used Garson to make it look like you're the victim in this. He never started threatening you until the 7up was gone and then he had you interrogated only 'cause he thought you'd messed with your little project, the neutralization device."

"No. _No_. Mr. Winston, tell him he's not thinking clearly, maybe the painkillers are confusing him. You're screwing up the facts, Garson threatened _me_!"

Winston at this point knew better than to ignore Guerrero's judgement, but he, too found it wasn't quite adding up the way Guerrero had sketched it out:

"You saying Caitlin planned an alibi? But if she never planned on destroying it- what the hell for?" Guerrero's face now showed ultimate victory.

"Yes, Guerrero", she pleaded, "why would I wanna do that? What are you even talking about?"

"I'm talking about your plan to take the 7up yourself. That's what the alibi was for." Guerrero let these news sink in for a moment. "So that the whole company could attest to your moral dilemma, while you'd make a whole lot of money with it, together with the neutralization device, of course. Last night I had a very interesting conversation with Mr. Garson. He's not as dead as you'd like. Coward wasn't even in the alley the night we were ambushed. Long story short, he kindly supplied me with a list of shady gunrunners that he knew would be interested in his product. And guess what: one of them got an offer for the 7up and the neutralization thingy. From you."

"Then you realized Garson beat you to the punch and you wouldn't be able to keep your side of the deal with only the neutralization part." Winston said, realisation dawning on him slowly.

"See, Caitlin, even Winston's got it figured out now. Quit the 'helpless little girl' impression."

Caitlin shook her head vehemently, tears in her eyes. But her face showed anger, not the fear of the wrongly accused.

"You're wrong! You don't know what you're talking about. Neither of you!" She shot up.

"I'll tell you what I'm talking about." Guerrero growled as he stood to face Caitlin. "I'm talking about _you_ using _me_ to blackmail Garson. My job in your little charade was to retrieve the 7up, so you could make the sell. And when you realized things wouldn't turn out the way you hoped in the alley- you decided to kill me."

***tbc obviously***


	14. Chapter 14

"Sit down." Caitlin looked dumbfounded, but didn't move, so Guerrero leaned in so close to her that she started to back away from him, stumbled over the couch and once again found herself seated next to Chance who met her with an icy glare.

"You- you don't believe him, do you? I wanted to take the 7up from the lab and destroy it!"

"Then what were you doing in the lab in the middle of the night with a hot soldering iron after it was already gone?" Caitlin opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

"Dude, my guess is she worked on her own version of a new 7up that she could sell."

"You know, Caitlin, somehow I believe Guerrero here more than you. You ran away from me when I was posing as a security guard at Cybotechs. You never complained about not being able to go back to your apartment. When Winston and I brought you here- you just played along. We offered the perfect protection from your upset buyers."

"That's not all there is to it, Chance." Winston took over.

"Guerrero, you said she was trying to kill you. I assume we're talking Barry Novacek here. _You_ hired the Novacek brothers to do your dirty work. When Chance walked in on Vile, he wasn't holding you hostage. The two of you were looking together for something. But when the fight with Chance took a nosedive for him, you needed to make sure he wouldn't start talking. So you shot him. And it was one of the Novaceks you expected when Chance called you. You didn't want them to call your private phone anymore, 'cause it could could the incident in the alley right to you."

"That was the hardest part for me to figure out: what the hell went wrong that night? I thought, with you being responsible for the sniper and all, you might wanna have the honour to tell us?" Guerrero looked at her expectingly.

"Oh, right." he proceeded. "You have no idea. You didn't count on old Barry getting himself killed on the roof, leaving nobody who could tell you what went down that night. Let me enlighten you:

You sent Barry on that roof to eavesdrop on our conversation. You thought Garson would give away the location of the weapon, but instead the five Garsons kept denying they had it at all. That's when all of us became dispensable. Garson 'cause you thought if my nice collection of his crimes didn't make him budge, nothing would. And I 'cause you thought I didn't have any more aces up my sleeve. So you told Barry to take care of us. But you made two mistakes here: One, if there's only one sniper that has to take care of 6 people, it's gotta get messy. Two: You underestimated me. Trying to get to Garson with the files was just the appetizer for my main plan."

Caitlin now showed genuine surprise, but still didn't say anything. Winston interrupted the silence with another discovery:

"Now I understand why you kept asking about him, 'cause we told you he's alive and you wanted to fix that."

"She did? Aww, that's touching." smirked Guerrero. "Maybe I was too hard on you. You know, I _did _mess up in the alley. I thought me and the men in black were chatting over the 7up itself, when all the time all they were focussed on was the neutralization device. So we talked past each other to a point where I thought there was a higher bidder, but all they were afraid of was _you_, 'cause you held your own invention hostage. You knew that one thing's useless without the other. You played us against each other."

"But you got tangled up in your own game, 'cause you tried to take advantage of Guerrero without letting him know your true motives." Chance summarized.

All three men were watching her now, waiting for some kind of statement, but all the woman did was shake her head weakly.

She could feel their murderous gazes, she was sure that any moment now they would jump her, make her kneel down on the floor and just put a bullet in her head. So she sat there paralyzed for what felt like a decade for her. It was strange, this was the first time since she had planned all this that she really feared for her life. Until now, it all had seemed like some kind of game, with her being the master. In the last few minutes, however, she had to watch as her power was taken away, and now she was the one with no aces left. Nothing happened. Why didn't they do anything? Finally she looked up at Guerrero, who was still hovering above her. He looked almost amused.

Inch by inch, she slid off the couch and took two hesitant steps. Nobody held her back. She began walking towards the door, never turning her back on the men that had exposed her. The last bit she ran and when she finally turned to open the door, she was sure to find it locked. It wasn't.

###

The three men watched as the door slammed shut behind her. Guerrero ever so slowly sank back onto the couch, rested his head on the back rest and closed his eyes. For a moment nobody spoke.

Then Guerrero's lips curled. "That was fun."

"Oh yeah? I'm thinking I would've enjoyed myself much more if you had actually bothered to bring us into the loop." Winston snarled.

"Where would've been the fun in that, Winston?"

"Guerrero, I half expected you to be gone in the morning." Cahnce said quietly. "I appreciate you let us be part of this."  
"You're kidding me." Winston flared up. _That's_ all you got to say to this, Chance? How long did _you_ know it'd all come back to Burton?"

"I didn't. I had a hunch maybe. But I knew Guerrero was on to something."

"Huh. Maybe your hunch can answer my last question then: If the Garsons made it so clear to Guerrero that they didn't want him dead, why attack him?"

"Dude, like I said: the real Garson wasn't there. The stooges he hired may've learnt a few fancy lines, but they, too had no idea what they were in for. Garson wasn't there to control them, so when the shooting started, they didn't know who to trust anymore and decided to change the rules. Didn't help them much."

"So what do we do now? You just let her walk away like this?"

"_We_ don't do anything, Winston. I let Caitlin know Garson's alive and well and Garson, let's just say 'happens to know' where Caitlin hid the neutralization part of the 7up. So they each have something the other wants. Together with Caitlin's disgruntled buyers, this'll end as a game of "last one standing" and I get to be the last one. It's over, dude."

***tbc***

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**Oh is it now, Guerrero? Well, I guess you guys will find out... sooner or later. In the meantime, if you did NOT see that coming, click the review button. If you saw it from a mile away, still click it. In either case I hope your glasses didn't fall into a meat grinder, so you won't miss the review button.**


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